


Ghost

by RogueTiger



Series: Supercorp [6]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Amnesia, Angsty enough that I cried, F/F, Lena Luthor-centric, Lena has a new name because... amnesia, Other characters will appear but will be background until they aren't, major character death but not really, reluctant superhero Lena Luthor, set post season 5
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-13
Updated: 2020-10-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:55:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 52,862
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25878526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogueTiger/pseuds/RogueTiger
Summary: Wounded mentally and physically after the final battle against Leviathan and Lex, Lena realises that she can no longer stay in National City in the hopes of sharing her home with a Kryptonian. But, before she can leave, Kara and the superfriends turn up at the airport and disaster strikes.**********Taken by her brother, Lena is tortured and experimented on with harun-el as he attempts to forge her into a mindless weapon to use against the Kryptonian's. But, with his foes closing in, Lex doesn't get to complete his plans in time before he is brought down once more.Her memories gone, her body imbued with powers she doesn't understand, Lena lashes out and almost kills Superman before escaping and forging a new life for herself with a couple that accept her for who she is and take her in even as their lives, and that of many others, are on the verge of collapse due to a water shortage that is destroying their farms just as a company run by Edge is moving in and buying up all the land it can.Using her powers, Lena (now Sarah) investigates Edge and gets drawn into the life of a hero as Ghost, even as it puts her into Supergirl's orbit.
Relationships: Alex Danvers & Kara Danvers, Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Series: Supercorp [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1127513
Comments: 156
Kudos: 403





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> AN - I wish I could give a better summary than that but if I do, it will give too much away. When more is written, summary and tags will probably be changed accordingly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter edited 29th Sept 2020

_Paper thin I waste away_

_Caught up in an endless phase_

_Trying to tell myself you'll fade_

_While clinging to the mess we made_

~~~~~~~~~~

Lena was smart, a certified genius in everything she set her mind to. From engineering to chess, to asserting her business acumen, fencing to an Olympic standard, and outsmarting her brother not once but three times before it was all said and done and he was laid to rest.

The first time had occurred in Metropolis where he had murdered innocent people and tried to turn the sun red to kill Superman. That had ended with his incarceration in a maximum-security prison but not before he had killed the judge and even more people seconds after been sentenced after she had given evidence against him.

The second and third time had been down to events in National City and both times it had ended in his death at her hand. Being a manipulative weasel, he had managed to escape the first death thanks to the being known as the Monitor deciding he was needed to save the Multiverse.

Typically of Lex, he had saved the remains of it for himself.

With the Monitor gone, Lena was desperately hoping that his latest demise as her hands would be the last she would see of him. The world was better off without him so she didn’t regret her decision to pull the trigger and take his life but, deserved or not, it took a bit of her with him to do it.

And it made people look at her differently in a ‘she killed her brother, who’s next?’ kind of way.

When she saw that look from a stranger, which she had even before she had killed Lex, it was easy to brush off. People would hate her no matter what she did in life and she had become accustomed to that every day of her life on Earth-38, Earth-Prime was just playing catchup.

That look was harder to stomach from someone she knew though. And, while Alex and the other ‘Superfriends’ were coming around to accepting her back in their lives since she and Kara had patched things up and fought alongside them to take down Lex and the remains of Leviathan and nearly died doing so, there were moments when Lena was sure she saw the reflection of her own doubt in their eyes.

After all, what kind of person killed their own brother and didn’t regret it? When Lena looked in the mirror sometimes, she saw the same dead look in her eyes that she had seen many times in Lex’s when he was being the most cruel. It was the look he’d had when he had stook beside her in Luthor Corp and listened to the screams from the streets below. It was the same look in his eyes when he had watched his own mother choking to death on the poison he had slipped into her drink.

It was cold and calculating. Devoid of emotion.

And Lena saw it in herself on her darkest days.

Was it a product of everything she had endured or was it some madness that lived in the Luthor genes that doomed them to loose their brilliant minds to madness? Luthors weren’t exactly known for living long and stable lives.

According to her adoptive mother, Lillian, her genius made her weak. She had three PhD’s and had been handed over the reins of a Fortune 500 company at the age of twenty-four. However, there was a tendency, a flaw in her makeup, one that was all too often exploited and used to manipulate her by anyone she let close.

She was too trusting. Too eager to please.

Lillian had spat it at her with typical dry fury like Lena hadn’t worked that out years before when Andrea Rojas had stolen from her and lied about it, stealing the medallion she had dreamed might save Lex.

But, knowing her flaw didn’t mean she was suddenly impervious to it when it had been all but beaten into her.

Lena couldn’t help but wonder as she had often before, what she might have been like if her birth mother hadn’t died? What path would Lena Kieran have taken in life that was denied Lena Luthor? What kind of person would she have turned out to be if she had managed to save her instead of standing frozen by shock and fear on the shore, watching as her mother was taken beneath the dark water? Would she still have been too trusting, too eager, if she hadn’t been touch-starved and denied love and reassurance?

Would she have seen the betrayal of the people she had yearned to call family and friends coming before they had plunged barbed daggers into her heart? Would she have known to protect her wounded heart from the people she longed to give it to for protection?

People like Andrea and—

A rush of air at her back that ruffled the strands of hair at her nape. A heavy rustle of a cape settling around strong shoulders and the thud of boots alighting upon tarmac had Lena’s traitorous heart soaring and stuttering hopefully in her chest even as her hand tightened upon the thin rail of the steps leading to her waiting jet in an effort to maintain poise and control.

Shifting her weight, Lena carefully steadied herself as she turned so as not to show the weakness still plaguing her every step after their final battle against Lex and the remains of Leviathan. She was still healing, still learning how to walk normally without showing any kind of weakness that could be used against her after months of care under the best doctors from several galaxies. But, cold mornings such as the one clinging to the usually balmy air over National City, and the foolish decision to wear her signature high heels did not help.

The airport was too busy even at that early hour for Lena to greet Kara by anything other than the name associated to the crest upon her chest and the cape hanging from her shoulders even if she had wanted to. Already there were cameras being turned on and pointed in their direction. But, one glance at her face was enough to quell the hope within her even before she quickly took in the fact that Kara hadn’t come alone.

Nia was there… No, Lena amended, not Nia: Dreamer was there. Her mask doing little to hide her features or the tenseness of her clenched jaw, and her battle-ready stance that was mirrored by J’onn, M’gann, Brainy and Alex as they stepped into view.

All of them were there, ranged around the hangers that housed the private planes, in a loose semi-circle.

Suited up.

Ready to fight.

All of them looking at her as if she was the enemy instead of the ally she had tried time and again to prove herself to be.

“Is there a problem, Ka-Supergirl?” Lena quickly bit back on her almost slip and signed the proffered paperwork with a firm stroke of her pen and waved her engineer off with instructions to make sure everything was ready for her departure.

Lena had to repeat herself twice but he finally rushed away, stumbling a couple of times as he struggled to keep his awestruck eyes on Supergirl as long as possible. Not that she could blame him. Even knowing the truth, Lena still found the figure Kara cut when she donned the blue and red suit a mesmerising sight even though looking at her still hurt her deeper than anything else had.

It was like a wound that festered and whispered vilely with Lex’s voice deep within her, refusing to let go of the pain caused by Kara playing her as both Supergirl and Kara. Using both identities depending on which one would get the best results.

Reporter and best friend.

Hero and Mentor.

Lena had tried and tried but she couldn’t shake the pain. She had even tried therapy but the list of people that could be trusted with her problems consisted of two names.

One of whom was off somewhere on a Thelma and Louise type road trip with her wife that may or may not have involved being on the wrong side of the law or whichever Bat was in resident in or around Gotham.

And the other one, she was the sister of her ill-advised dating choices and was also dating Kara’s sister. Kara’s sister who had lied and manipulated her just as much as Kara had, and was currently giving her a look as if she had kicked a litter of puppies.

“I called around your apartment this morning to check how— how you were doing.” Kara nodded towards Lena’s leg and side. Her eyes softened with concern but she fought down the urge to ask how Lena was feeling, knowing her friend would hate to have what had happened mentioned aloud where someone might overhear. “It was empty.”

“I’ve been busy,” Lena stated with a dismissive wave of a hand before corralling along with the other, wrapping them both around her waist to still her fidgeting. She was a grown woman, CEO or several _Fortune 500_ companies, a woman that had saved the world several times over, faced down gods and killed her brother… twice. She refused to feel like a child called in front of a teacher, forced to defend her actions all because of the flash of hurt in Kara’s damnably pretty blue eyes.

“You should be resting Lena! You nearly died!”

“It was just a flesh wound, Kara!” Lena hissed back, all too aware of the eyes of the people gathering around them wanting to gawk at Supergirl or hoping to see a showdown between the hero and the last Luthor in town.

The changes to reality after Crisis had afforded the Luthor name a level of respect that had once again eroded and replaced with fear and mistrust thanks to the actions of Lex and Lillian when they turned on everything and were revealed to have been working with Leviathan to kill everyone on Earth.

“It was—”

“A flesh wound,” Lena hissed again, her teeth getting dangerously close to shattering with how tensely her jaw was clenched.

After all the work her PR team had done to ensure that Luthor Corp would stay somewhat afloat to protect the good people working there, she would be damned if anyone outside of the circle of ‘Superfriends’ was going to find out about her hip and knee replacements and the months of surgery, reconstruction and physical therapy that had gone into getting her back on her feet after Gamemnae had almost succeeded in ripping her in half before Kara could stop her.

Lena wasn’t even sure if Kara knew why she was angry as nothing showed on her face but there was a flicker in her eyes, a hesitant caution that started a flicker of fire and pain when she heard the accusation starting in her voice.

“I went to L-Luthor Corp,” Kara’s lips pursed in an amalgam of pain and anger at the reminder that this wasn’t the Earth she had once protected. “After I left your apartment I went there. Jess told me you were leaving? That I could find you here.”

“And here I am. Here you are… all of you,” Lena gestured around her with an encompassing sweep of her arm that showcased the busy airport, her plane, and the heroes all watching her.

“Why?”

“Well, I’m sure I don’t know why you are all here but, I’m taking off in about ten minutes.”

“Why are you leaving, Lena?” _Why are you leaving me?!_

“Why are you all here? Is there a problem I need to be aware of, Supergirl?”

Kara’s lips did that cute, exasperated pout thing they did, the motion telling Lena clearly that she was taking the name she used as a slight and not as the protection of her identity that it was.

That it mostly was.

That pain was festering, growing off the mistrust she was sure she could feel around her fuelling it.

But, Lena couldn’t defuse the situation or the pain when even a whisper might be picked up by more than the Kryptonian ears it was intended for. And, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to defuse the situation. Surely, it was easier to just create a clean break even with a blunt object than surgically cut her way around emotions and risk leaving even a faint trace behind.

“Dreamer had a vision—” Kara started, trying to get out what she needed to say to warn Lena of the danger but Lena cut her off sharply.

“Oh?” Lena shifted her weight, wondering if there truly was something that required her help? Maybe one last mission was what she needed?

“She saw you… And an explosion here at the airport.”

Lena’s brows came together in confusion at the tone of Kara’s voice. There was none of the concern she was used to from her friend, well, from Kara. There was only the Supergirl level of suspicion as she looked around.

“You think I’m responsible for this ‘explosion’?” her fingers twisted and drummed in agitation.

“What?” Kara’s brain froze, her jaw clenching at the accusation.

“I’m moving on from National City and all its twisted memories,” Lena explained in the face of the stubborn jut of Kara’s jaw. Her eyes drifted to the side, as all the accusations and Lex’s twisted whisperings in her ear threatened to overwhelm her. “A new CEO will be taking over the offices here.”

“And what are your… plans?”

“My plans?” Every hair on Lena’s body stood up in anger. “Nothing that concerns Supergirl. No nefarious plans of world domination or schemes that will put so much as a scratch on the stubborn hide of a Kryptonian!”

“Lena—” Kara reached out a hand placatingly but it was rejected with a glare.

“Fuck me! You really still think after _everything_ that happened… after what I went through?” she hissed, tapping a hand against her side where her scars were hidden by her clothing. “You still think I’m _just_ a Luthor? Un-fucking believable!”

“Dreamer—”

“With all respect in the world to Dreamer and her abilities, we all know that she struggles to interpret her dreams at the best of times. Maybe if you all would take the time to help her with that, or find her someone that can, then things wouldn’t have gone as far as they had with Brainy. Who I see has been welcomed back into the fold after siding with Lex and working against you.”

“The same way you did—”

Lena sighed, her head dropping in frustration. “I had a lot of time to reflect on things between surgeries, Kara. A lot of time to reflect on my childhood and the abuse I suffered daily. Kara Danvers was the first person to hold out an olive branch to me; a Luthor, since Lex murdered all those people and tried to kill Superman. You never trusted me though, not completely.”

“I stood up for you so often—” _I always will!_ It was right there on her tongue to say but Lena cut her off again.

“Yes, I know. And, I’m not saying I didn’t do things wrong. I still live with those mistakes but... Winn’s father was the Toyman but I never saw you looking his way when there was an explosion. J’onn was in charge of an off-the-books clandestine organisation that took aliens off the street and held them without trial. Your sister hid working for the very same agency for years. And, correct me if I’m wrong, even when she was in charge she still had kryptonite held on-site? Mon-El, he came from a planet that believed in slavery and he lied to you for months about who he was. Everyone else gets a pass, but Dreamer has a vision about me and you’re all here looking like you want to put me in cuffs and throw me in the deepest hole you can find?”

“Lena—”

Lena held up a hand, silencing the guilty-looking Kryptonian. “I have got so many reasons to walk away from National City. Surprisingly, not all of them are to do with you. And, as you have no legal right to detain me, unless you want a lawsuit slapping on all of you, I am getting on my plane.”

“You can’t—”

“Give me a reason.”

“What?”

Lena stepped closer, willing her leg not to give out from standing still for too long. She could feel the heat radiating from Kara’s body seeping through the layers of her clothing and her closeness afforded her the sight of Kara’s nostrils narrowing as she drew in a breath and her pupils widening as her eyes flickered down to her lips.

“I know why I have to leave, give me one good reason as to why I should stay… one that doesn’t involve my last name,” she demanded… begged… quietly. “Just one reason, that’s all I’m asking for.”

She stepped back with a deeply broken sigh and turned away as the silence dragged out past the point of anything comfortable. “No doubt you will find out where I’m going easily enough but I would prefer it for my mental health if you would leave me in peace to live my life. Goodbye, Supergirl.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Alex jogged across the tarmac, her boots thudding in tandem to Nia’s as they raced over the smooth surface to Kara’s side as Lena’s plane taxied towards the runway. The small but powerful engines whipped Kara’s cape back, the thick, techy fabric rippling and cracking in the breeze but her sister remained as still and unmoving as a statue apart from her hair that caught the morning sun in its golden strands.

“Supergirl?”

“She’s leaving,” Kara whispered brokenly. Her heart felt like it cracked and splintered as the words left her mouth.

Alex could see that clearly for herself as the plane raced down the runway, gathering speed until power and engineering beat gravity and the heavy machine left the ground.

“But, we haven’t checked her plane to make sure it’s safe! Want me to stop her?”

“What in the hell! Put that away,” Alex ordered sharply before Nia could do anything stupid with the coils of dream energy forming around her wrists. They really needed to have a word with the girl about her impulsive behaviour. “You’re more likely to rip the plane apart and fulfil your own dream. Can you see anything hidden on board, Supergirl?”

“It’s clean,” Kara confirmed.

“Then we need to check all the buildings and the planes before they take off. Then we can see about finding out where Lena is going and make sure she’s okay. There are ways to find her without destroying property, Nia.”

“I guess.”

Knowing Lena Luthor and her genius mind, it wouldn’t be easy to find her but that didn’t mean they had to take drastic measures when she hadn’t done anything. Not that Alex doubted Nia’s dream visions, not really, but, Alex needed something more tangible to go off, preferably finding the bomb she had seen. Then they could work out if Nia seeing Lena in the vision had meant anything or not? And, she had an obviously distressed sister to tend to before they did anything else.

“What happened?” Ignoring the people moving around the area, their eyes fixed upon the heroes in their midst’s instead of doing their jobs, Alex placed her hand upon Kara’s slumped shoulder.

Kara shrugged her shoulder in a half-hearted attempt to escape the comfort her sister was trying to give her. She didn’t deserve it! She didn’t deserve anything other than the crushing pain in her heart that had bloomed with the barbs of truth dripping from Lena’s words and the realisation of how much pain she had caused Lena once again.

“She— I hurt her Alex. I hurt her. She thought we were here because we didn’t trust her. She didn’t give me a chance to explain and then she— she left me.”

“Hey. Listen to me, Kar,” grasping her shoulders, Alex tried to turn her to face her. She didn’t understand why Kara was so distraught but she could see that she was and that was more than enough for her. “It’s not over. We’ll find her and whatever is going on, we’ll fix it—”

“What if we can’t?”

“You’re the Paragon of Hope. I have faith that if anyone can, it’s you,” Alex smiled encouragingly. “No matter what, you and Lena always seem to come through for each other even when you’re mad at each other. Quantum entanglement, right?”

“That is some soulmate AU level of gayness,” Nia whispered to herself. “I’m going to grab Brainy after we check the airport and have a word with some of the guys working around here. See if their stories match up with Lena’s official flight plans that I’m sure Brainy will hack for us later.” Maybe along the way she could figure out what her vision about Lena had really meant.

~~~~~~~~~~

Lena cradled the tumbler in her hand, watching as the amber liquid filling an insanely unhealthy but, in her eyes, very necessary amount of space tilted and shifted in the glass as her plane took off and banked to circle around the airport to put them on the right heading.

Through the small window, she saw the glint of morning sun bouncing off golden hair and shallowed a choked sob down with a gulp of fiery whiskey. She knew she was finally doing the right thing in getting away from a situation that was causing her pain but, that didn’t make it any easier to walk away from the woman she was painfully, secretly in love with.

Lena didn't know when it had happened... maybe it was from the first moment she had taken notice of the beautiful, shy woman that had entered her office with Clark Kent and found within Kara's blue eyes hidden behind glasses and downcast glances, an almost fierce understanding and trust when she had voiced her plans for L-Corp. Or maybe it was that time at Noonan's when Kara had approached her, still holding out an olive branch despite Lena's rebufal and she had let down walls already crumbling from Kara's gentle, earnestness and allowed Kara inside.

Loving Kara had felt both inevitable and very one-sided as, despite long hugs, brunches, lunches, movie night, and almost flirty glances, Kara had dated first Mon-El and then the creepy English guy with pecs that were almost bigger than Lena’s breasts and, along the way, she had pushed her into dating James Olsen.

At least Sam had had the grace to apologise for her part in that and said she felt like it had been Reign messing with her as James was obviously wrong for her, and frankly, he was a jerk.

Being friend-zoned wasn’t too bad though, not when it got her a friend like Kara who was more loving and attentive in her friendship than any romantic partner had ever been. In fact, she had had romantic partners that had touched her less than Kara had so she couldn’t even claim that all that was missing was the intimacy but one-sided was still one-sided.

She could have lived with it though, being in love with her best friend. However, thanks to her brother getting all chatty after she shot him the first time, Lena had found out that her friend had been playing her for a fool since they had met.

Lena had told Kara over and over of all the times she had been betrayed by people she had loved. But, even knowing how much it had hurt her, no matter how much she had begged, Kara had kept her identity as Supergirl from her and had using both identities against her when she couldn’t get what she wanted with one.

Maybe, Lena mused, taking a deep gulp of whiskey to wash down the bitter taste in her mouth, Kara hadn’t assumed that meant her because she had used the word ‘love’ and a Super couldn’t love a Luthor.

It had tipped Lena over the edge in a way no other betrayal had before. She had taken a shameful trip down a dark and lonely path with an AI she had created for companionship before her brother had returned from the dead to manipulate her in person with his sibulant lies. And, she had fallen for it. Knowing he would sabotage and use her. Knowing he would try to kill her once she was no longer useful. And she had been so starved for friendship and approval, so eager to fix the worlds pain so she could cure herself of her own, that she had let it happen and almost gone too far.

Kara had promised once to always be there for her, to always be at her side but, in the end, she had gone too far for even Kara. She had pulled away, telling her if she went any further, she would treat her like any other villain.

Lena had come to realise what Lex’s schemes were thankfully before it was too late for her to come back but it had been close. There had been a moment with Lex spitting his vile words in her face where she could have caved and toed the line like he wanted and without Kara’s belief in her it would have been so easy.

Lex was a monster, she’d known that for years. But that didn’t mean she had to be one too. She didn’t have to be just another Luthor.

With her head up and back straight, she had saved her own soul and made her way round to Kara’s apartment with cap in hand and thrown herself on her mercy.

That day felt like a lifetime ago. The first step of many to rebuild herself and the friendships she had lost.

But…

Just being in National City was whittling away at her. She no longer felt like she could trust herself anymore and it was obvious that neither did Kara or her friends.

Finishing off the last of her drink, Lena slammed the empty glass down on the table at her side. A couple more like that and maybe she could sleep away most of the flight to Ireland.

She had a lot to do there but, maybe once she was settled. A whole new chapter of her life to start and a lot of healing to do.

A noise from the cockpit caught her ear and had her spinning around, the world spun slightly as she rose to her feet and took a step forward that was more wobbly and uncoordinated than her injuries or the whiskey could account for.

Gripping the back of her seat, she ran her finger around the bottom of the glass in her hand, finding the residue there that was responsible for her sudden collapse onto the thick carpet unable to move or call out for help.

She could still hear though as the automatic alarms from the cabin cycled up in intensity, warning of something on a collision course with the plane.

And she felt it as the plane was slammed into, air rushing out, dragging her body towards the oblivious of a fall even as flames rushed in to lick at her helpless body.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Lena!” The name was ripped from Kara’s lungs and lost to the air as Kara pushed off, leaving a sizable crater in the tarmac where she had been standing as she took to the sky.

It was too late!

She was too late!

Kara knew it. But it didn’t stop her from trying even as Lena’s plane exploded, the wall of fire, sound and energy buffeted her as it shattered windows and knocked people off their feet.

She knew it as chunks of the burning plane crashed through the airport, bringing chunks of the building down and setting it ablaze and as another piece ripped apart a full passenger jet just as it landed.

Kara knew she was too late… but that didn’t stop her from trying, from searching and ripping apart every piece of Lena’s plane she could find long after the fires had been extinguished and all but one body was accounted for.

Even on the day that Lena’s empty casket was laid to rest in the quiet plot of land Lena had purchased in advance for herself in preparation for a life she knew would be cut short, well away from the Luthor mausoleum, Kara didn’t stop.

She hovered above it all, silent, heartbroken, her usual red and blue suit replaced with a more traditional Kryptonian version made of a material so dark it absorbed the light just as the light and joy had left Kara that day.

As the casket was lowered into the ground, she spoke, offering up a prayer in her own tongue to a silent god in a voice that cracked with the tears that streamed unbidden down her cheeks to rain down upon the casket far below.

They had asked her to speak at the service but it was a goodbye she wasn’t ready to give and just thinking about it had devastated her. In the end, to appease the press that was looking to drag Lena’s good name through the dirt, J’onn had issued a press statement in her stead using her likeness, informing them that ‘she’ would be mourning her friend in the tradition of her planet.

He had informed them all afterwards that he’d had word from his brother that he was needed back on Mars. He was staying for the funeral for his ‘daughters’ and after he’d left, M’gann would be taking his place at the Tower if they were okay with her being a part of their group.

A part of Kara that felt bitter and angry through grief wondered if there wasn’t also some measure of guilt driving J’onn away from Earth? She’d heard and see for herself the people, humans and aliens, that had come to J’onn’s PI offices asking for help finding loved ones that had gone missing after being swept up by armed agents in black and it didn’t take a genius to know they’d more than likely ended up in a small cell at a DEO black site.

~~~~~~~~~~

As the few mourners that had been allowed to attend the graveside trickled away to just the familiar figure of her sister and several men waiting to do their job of filling in the grave, Kara finally landed.

Even knowing that the casket was empty, it was almost more than she could stand to see it beneath the level of the ground, the shiny material marred by dirt that had been tossed over it at the hands of people that didn’t love how she had deserved to be loved.

Kneeling, she placed the bouquet of _Plumerias_ she had been carrying carefully upon the casket. The pure white of the handpicked flowers stood out as starkly against the black did their symbolism for devotion, spirituality and love, eternal life and immortality.

“Kara—”

“I need to be alone right now.”

Without sparing a glance at her sister, Kara took to the sky once more, her slow ascent speeding up as she tried futilely to escape her anguish until she stopped, her body hanging in stillness above the city as she searched and searched, her ears straining just to hear Lena’s heart beating its familiar refrain.

~~~~~~~~~~

“I should have told her, Alex.” Kara looked at the photo in her hands. Taken in simpler times, it showed herself and Lena, their heads so close together that their hair had become entangled. She could remember the wibbly, warm feeling in the pit of her stomach at the laugh Lena had given and Alex had captured.

“Told her what?” Alex leaned her head against Kara’s shoulder, her eyes tearing up as she looked at the photograph clasped within Kara’s trembling hands. It was still strange to think that, even though Crisis had reset a lot of things, there were still some memories they shared between their old lives on their Earth, Earth-38 and their new reality that had been created on Earth-Prime.

“She asked… begged me, to give her a reason to stay here and I froze. I should have just told her the truth Alex. Should have told her that I loved her. If I’d told the truth she wouldn’t have walked away. She— they would still be alive.”

“You— _loved_ her? Love, loved?” Alex lifted her head, sharing a glance with Kelly who was sitting on the other side of Kara on the couch to confirm that they were both hearing the same thing. Her gaydar was still pitiful but she could see by the widening of Kelly’s eyes that she had _finally_ heard the depths of her sisters feelings.

“I should have told her a long time ago but she was— WOW, you saw her, right? She was way out of my league and I was Kara, just Kara. I couldn’t lose her so I was content to just be friends that had to be enough! And it was. She was amazing! But… I had the chance to tell her and I got scared that it wouldn’t be good enough reason for her to stay… And now I’ll never get the chance.”

~~~~~~~~~~

_You are best loved from afar_

_'Cause when you're close we both leave scars_

_So bury me to make it stop_

_And don't come back to dig me up_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for things looking dire BUT... everything will be OK!!!  
> Supercorp are endgame.

Lena blocked out the droning voices coming from the stereotypical, supervillain-chic, bank of screens that took up a whole wall of the largely sterile laboratory she was been held against her will within. The volume rose sharply in a clear warning to pay attention but, with the strength that came from years of practice and the punishments for failure, Lena didn’t so much as twitch or make a sound to give away the slightest sign that it bothered her.

It was a game she had played often with Lex when she had been young and the unwitting subject of his twisted experiments and since he had arranged for her to be drugged on her own plane and portaled in to ‘save’ her at the last second.

“Oh do pay attention, Lena! It is not every day that one gets to see their own funeral! I missed my first one but the second was rather fun if a little quiet. I know I’d tried to kill you and take over the world but really, you could have tried harder to give me the kind of sendoff I deserved!”

With a hand rendered trembling and stiff from the heavy scaring that ran along most of her right side, Lena picked up one of the white knights on the chessboard before her and moved it into position.

Her silence on Lex’s posturing earned her the sound of expensively capped teeth grinding and the punishing grip of manicured nails digging into her jaw to yank her head up to meet his deranged glare. He leaned closer, her nose wrinkling in disgust as his breath and spittle hit her in the face.

“I saved you, dear sister! Where as you. _You_! Left me to die… Twice!”

“You saved me? From the plane you blew up around me?”

“That was a necessary act, Lena dear. And saved is still saved. I could just as easly blown you up and you would have missed all your friends mourning you. Wait, were any of them your friends?”

“It hardly counts as a charitable act, Lex. Shooting you, now that—” she was cut off by a roar of anger and a harsh shove that had the restraints preventing her from bashing his big, bald head in with the nearest heavy object cutting into her and rubbing against wounds that had still barely begun to heal.

Lena looked up, breathing through the pain as he turned away to compose himself, a twisted version of _Serenade No.13 in G Major_ humming from between lips clenched into a pinched, thin line like a ragged wound across his face. Over his shoulder, she could see the TV’s and her attention was drawn against her will to the images collected there from all his tiny spy drones that filled the screens with the faces of the people at her funeral.

Amongst the limited amount of mourners that was largely made of up Luthor Corps board members there out of a sense of duty and desire to be seen, Lena saw the familiar faces of Alex with Kelly at her side, along with Nia, Brainy, J’onn, M’gann, and even James and Winn along with several members of The Legion.

Which didn’t bode well for her in Lena’s eyes as, why would heroes from the future feel the need to pay their respects if they knew she was alive?

She hadn’t given up. She was too stubborn for that. But, Lena was a realist and if this truly was the end for her, she needed to find a way to take Lex out again or at least buy Kara enough time to work out he was still alive so she could stop him.

The side of her made bitter from abuse wondered if any of them would actually miss her or if they were there just to see another Luthor been buried when the only ones there that had never deliberately held anything back from her or lied to her were Sam, Ruby, and Jess, who, despite being her assistant, Lena could see that her tears were genuine as she comforted Ruby while her mother had given her eulogy.

“Do you think anyone will question that your _bestie_ , Kara Danvers is missing from your graveside?” Lex questioned with a sneer when he realised the direction of her gaze.

“Not as much as they would talk if Supergirl wasn’t there,” Lena defended her friend automatically. “Kara Danvers is a reporter,” she was a nobody in the eyes of the world even if she had been everything to Lena, “Supergirl is known around the world. Not showing up at all would raise too many questions.”

“And yet she hovers above it all. Judging humanity… Judging us like the gods they want us to think of them as!”

“Neither she nor Superman has ever claimed they are gods, that’s just you, Lex. You obsessed over their culture, you know she is mourning in the manner of her own people,” Lena bit back as the tiny drone keeping track of Kara zoomed in on her, filling the screen with her tear-streaked face and her lips moving in a manner that spoke of reverence even if the words were alien to human ears.

“Leave her alone, Lex,” Lena begged, turning her face so that her hair shielded her eyes from the anguish darkening Kara’s blue eyes and the start of a cough bubbling wetly up from her smoke and fire damaged lungs.

A feral grin twisted Lex’s lips at the sign of weakness he had been waiting for. It was bound to show. It always did no matter how Lena tried to hold it back behind a wall of silence. Which is why goading her into talking was a sure-fire way to speed the process along and make her vulnerable.

“That sounds _so_ painful, Lena,” he sighed with false concern as she coughed damply into her trembling hand. “If you had helped me more in this reality instead of trying to take over everyone’s minds with your doomed little project, _Non Nocere_ then I could have had a better, faster suit that could have gotten me to you before the flames did quite so much damage—”

“Damage you caused,” Lena bit out between stifled coughs. “ _You_ wrote yourself into the role of a Paragon and rewrote the reality after Crisis. _You_ set yourself up as the hero here. And you didn’t think to give yourself a better suit?” She gave a mocking laugh, pricking at his ego with the sharp barbs of truth.

“Just give me the Harun-El formula, Lena,” he bit out angrily, quickly losing patience for the game she was trying to play. “Help me to perfect it. One injection and all this _pain_ ,” he gripped her wrist, tightening his fingers until she winced and gave him the cry of pain he was looking for, “it will be over. You will be healed.”

“I wouldn’t tell you even if I knew and the thing is brother dearest, I _don’t_ know. What you don’t know is that mother was the one that figured out how to stabilise it beyond what I had been able to do on my own on Earth-38. Not only did you not think her worthy enough to arrange for her to keep all her memories after the Crisis but, she isn’t here, you saw to that,” she gave a mocking shrug, needling him with his failure.

“I will not lose, Lena!” Lex screamed inches from her face.

“Oh, but Lex. You already did and with both games,” she nodded her head towards the chessboard; bringing his attention to the move she had made that had trapped is pieces. “Checkmate.”

The chessboard flew, the glass pieces shattering upon the bare concrete floor as Lex roared his anger and upended the table it had been set upon each day he had pulled her from the cold depths of the stasis he kept her locked in since he had ‘rescued’ her from the burning hull of the plane he had set ablaze.

“You always think you’re so smart!” Lex hissed from behind the hand he dragged over his face. Standing upright, he carefully straightened the creases out of his suit jacket and composed himself as he turned his face his sister. “I made you, Lena. I tested and moulded you since the day father brought you home. You might think you’re winning but I’m always… ALWAYS… ten steps ahead of every pathetic little move you make! You won’t help with the Harun-El?”

“Never!”

“Then you will just have to be my test subject again while I figure it out for myself.” He watched carefully, satisfaction blooming in him in a euphoric wave as her eyes widened in understanding. “It was always going to be you, Lena. You just picked the hard road to travel. Corben!”

Lena pulled futilely against the bonds holding her to the chair bolted to the floor as the thick metal door to Lex’s secret laboratory swung open with a heavy groan to admit the always sneering figure of Lex’s favourite lackey, John Corben.

Lena had never expected to see him again but apparently, he had been spared the fate of Earth-38’s Corben as Lillian hadn’t implanted a chunk of unstable Kryptonite in his chest as she had been busy hiding her true nature with her charity work.

“Put her on the table.”

Sadistic and smart, he leapt to Lex’s bidding with a smirk of anticipation that spread into a wide grin as he ignored Lena’s attempts to fight him off. With a laugh, he waited for a coughing fit to weaken her before working on her bonds and yanking her from the chair towards the narrow metal table that would have looked at home in an operating theatre or mortuary.

“Miss Teschmacher!”

Lex smirked as Lena stiffened noticeably in outrage as the hologram bearing the face and figure of Eve Teschmacher shimmered into being in the room. He had no feeling towards Eve other than the disdain he felt for how easy it was to manipulate and play upon her emotions and feelings in any reality. For Lena though… he knew his foolish sister had let herself become attached once again and had her feeling hurt. Hurt had led to anger. Anger had burned into an almost admirable, Luthor level of revenge that had seen Eve’s mind replaced by the AI Lena had created, Hope.

And it was Hope, captured from plans he had found recreated in journals Lena had written to hold onto memories of her old life, that spoke out of the hologram.

“How may I be of service today, Mr Luthor?”

“You son of a—” Lena glared at Corben in pain and anger, directing her words and those she couldn’t find the air to say his way as he deliberately pulled sharply on the straps across her chest, pulling them tight enough to cut into the burns on her side and caused them to weep and bleed in rivulets of pain.

“Bring up the Harun-El protocol. Stage one… Make the necessary allowances for a _reluctant_ test subject,” Lex added, casting an admonishing look of reproach in Lena’s direction, giving her a second to change her mind before reaching for a pair of gloves.

Behind him, he could hear the distant whir of the machines he had designed coming to life under the control of the AI as he pulled on the gloves one at a time. Snapping the gloves dramatically into place at his wrists in time to the music soaring to a crescendo in his head that drowned out Lena’s screams as the many probes and implements at his disposal tore into her helpless body, embedding into flesh and bone.

“The test subject is ready, Mr Luthor.”

On the still running screens before him, the images went from many to one as the drones all turned their attention on Supergirl, her anguished expression filling his vision.

His sister had foolishly, blindly, trusted the Supers and ignored the threat the aliens posed from the moment Superman had put on his cape and appeared in the skies over Metropolis. She had, in an move he considered sickening, moved to National City just to be near Supergirl, to _live_ with her. Even the version of her that the creation of Earth-Prime had created before her memories had been returned, was instrumental in creating the bond between the Luthors and the Kryptonians.

A bond that, one way or another, she would help him destroy!

With a careless wave of a gloved hand, Lex signalled for Corben to place an IV bag filled with the trial version of Harun-El securely into place. The dark liquid shimmered in the bright lights hanging over the table, reflecting the promise of a better future back at him in a swirl of black and purple.

“No… No… Lex! Don’t do this!”

“Commence trial one. Just the one bag should suffice for this trial.”

“Lex!”

Closing his eyes, he conducted the trial and Lena’s pain and suffering with a smile and an orchestra playing his song in his mind even as the machines monitoring Lena’s vitals screamed in warning as her heart stopped beating.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Trial ten is ready to commence, Mr Luthor.”

“Are you sure you don’t have any suggestions on how to make this easier for you, Lena?” Lex wheedled gently, leaning closer like a brother concerned for the wellbeing of his little sister as he studied at how the Harun-El had managed to repair most of the damage done.by the flames even though the main point of the trials continued to fail.

Really, the uses of the alien substance was endless… but he was only converned with one.

“How about you take my place and let your fucked up AI pet pump _you_ full of poison!”

“Now, now, Lena. There’s no need to be like that. Commence trial ten and pull up some music for me.”

“Right away, Mr Luthor.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“Why isn’t this working!?” Lex snarled in frustration as he glowered at the facts and figures displayed on the tablet before him. “This should be working!”

“From the facts that you have given me, Mr Luthor, the trials are failing because your sister, Lena Luthor, refuses to help you.”

“I know that—”

“Also, her heart keeps malfunctioning, necessitating the need for a pause in the trials while that it fixed.”

“I don’t know how my sister put up with you for so long.”

“With all due respect, Mr Luthor, my systems and programming are based on your interpretation of Lena Luthor’s previous success with her AI, Hope. I would also like to point out that Lena Luthor is currently awake.”

“But she’s in stasis—”

“She is in the stasis chamber and she is also awake.”

“Ahhh, Lena!” Lex careful controlled his expression as he turned and found, as the useless AI copy had belatedly told him, his sister was indeed awake if looking worse for wear. “I almost thought you wouldn’t make it after that last trial.”

He rapped his signet ring against the thick glass, drawing her wavering attention. He jumped back, startled despite his best efforts as her hand shot up through the thick liquid and pressed against the glass.

“Increase the sedation!” he barked at the hovering AI.

“The sedation is currently at the maximum safe levels for the chamber, Mr Luthor.”

“Then go beyond the maximum safety levels! Hmm, maybe the Harun-El is starting to work after all? Make a note to increase the dosage for the next trial.”

“That—”

“Just do what I say or I will replace you with an abacus!”

“Yes, Mr Luthor. Note added for trial twenty-five.”

“Try not to die next time, Lena. It is getting rather tiresome.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“You’re looking a little rough there, Lex. Problems at Luthor Corp?”

As needling went it was pitiful and weak but after god only knew how many trials, even Lex’s AI had given up logging the numbers, it was all Lena could manage as Corben dragged her soaking and drugged to the eyeballs from the stasis chamber to the cold metal table.

It was worth it though to see Lex’s shoulders tense visibly even beneath the cover of the battered, green Lexosuit he was wearing, and hear his teeth grind in frustration as he wiped sweat and dirt from his brow.

“Unfortunately, sister dearest, that pesky blonde freak you aligned yourself with over your own family somehow worked out that I’m not as dead as they had all thought.”

“Kara—”

“She won’t save you if that’s what you think,” Lex hissed, his armoured fist tightening at his side in lieu of her throat. “They still think _you_ are very much dead. Unfortunately, for you, that means this next trial might hurt a _little_ more than usual.”

“Have you even thought about what will happen if this does work, Lex? I already killed you twice with no powers and a gun, do you think it will be anything less than disastrous for you if I have the power of a Kryptonian running through my veins?”

“Do you think I haven’t figured that into my equations?” Lex smirked darkly.

“You’re only been awake and remembering any of this because I want you to suffer now. When the time comes you will be a blank slate. Memories wiped. My puppet to unleash against the Kryptonians and any other alien scum I want! You will be my weapon!” he bellowed.

“Your precious Kara will die with your hands around her throat knowing she failed you. Or she will kill you and know the same. Either is a win in my book,” he waved a hand dismissively.

“And, if you survive, I might just let you have your memories back after I strip the Harun-El from you, just so I can have the pleasure of seeing that you know what you did for me while I squeeze the life from your body.”

Leaning down, he savoured the pain and horror dawning in her eyes as he smoothed a damp strand of hair back from her forehead.

“So, there you have it, Lena. Now you finally see just how many steps ahead of you all I have been all along in this game. Enjoy the knowledge of what is to come while you can.”

Stepping back from the table, ignoring Lena’s thrashing upon it, Lex quickly punched commands into the keyboard interface of the silenced AI.

“Right,” he straightened up, “that should do for now. I will see you later, Lena.” He strode towards the door, stopped and pivoted sharply and an armoured heel. “Oh, I nearly forgot…” he waited, watching as the Harun-El worked its way through the tubes connected to his sister. Waited until it was one drop away from burning her from the inside in agony.

“Checkmate.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN - I am not good at judging when things need TW's as I know what's coming so... TW might be needed for abuse/torture so tread lightly, take care of yourself and know that Lena will be okay :)

Consciousness came slowly for Lena, born on wings of a rising, rhythmic electronic wail of machines crying out in warning. Lena felt sluggish and weighed down, her body spasming, resisting the call to wakefulness and whatever horrors would be awaiting her but finally, reluctantly, her eyes flickered open.

Lena stayed still, letting the memories come to her, knowing better than to move and give away the fact that she was awake to whoever was watching as she floated helplessly in the grips of the drugs still working against her in the slightly viscous fluids of the stasis chamber where she had been held, fluctuating between the peace of unconsciousness and agony when it was time for another one of Lex’s Harun-El trials.

He didn’t even turn up for his experiments on her any more. Even if he wasn’t locked in a dangerous game of hide-and-seek in his battle against Supergirl and the other aliens that called Earth their own. Most of the time, Lena didn’t miss him but, there were some days when consciousness was forced upon her when she missed the sight of something living looking at her from the other side of her glass prison, even if that was Lex.

At least then she knew that time had passed even if she had no way of knowing how much or how little time that was.

The chamber that was usually immaculate thanks to the industrial-strength air and filtration system within the laboratory, Lex was fastidious about such things to the point that Lena had often been able to use it against him and find his hiding places simply by the power they used. But, cleanliness had given away to a thick layer of dirt and dust that rendered the laboratory beyond into vague shapes she could make out only because she knew there was something there to see beyond the red flashes of warning lights and the disembodied electronic voice of the AI that crackled out a warning in a voice that was barely recognisable.

“… stasis chamber… Catastrophic… phic… failure im-imm- imminent…”

The warning warbled, words stuttering and missing as it rose and fell but losing none of the urgency that had Lena futilely looking around the bare tube she was trapped within for a way out.

The bank of screens flickered to life, filling with frozen images and snippets of news footage that ran at disjointed speeds all telling the story of her brothers fall at the hands of the Supers and their respective teams above the ruins of Metropolis.

Lena watched one screen as it played a video over and over that showed the moment before he fell. He had Supergirl in his grasp, her body weakened by the Kryptonite within his suit that had her skin glowing with the green poison. The scream of agony cut off by the armoured fist wrapped around her throat came out of her pain-filled eyes as huge tears that reflected the green of the Kryptonite killing her.

Killing her wasn’t enough for Lex though, it never was with him. There always had to be something else, one last stab with words or weapon just to make sure you knew he had won. And Lena saw it in the sneer of contempt on his face as he leaned in closer to Kara, his lips moving against her ear as he said something that looked like _you failed her, you will never know where she—_

Lex was a genius, one of the greatest minds of any generation but his biggest hubris lay in a failure to consider the inventiveness of mankind when it came to killing things bigger and stronger than them.

The Lexosuit was designed by a man to take on the might of a Kryptonian, _not_ the bullet that was small and unaffected by the Kryptonite that was its main weapon and defence. It found the gap in its defences she remembered pointing out to Alex Danvers and taking advantage of herself a lifetime ago.

The bullet silenced him, cutting off the poisonous words spewing from his mouth.

And then, he was falling, his hand slipping out of Kara’s reach as Clark pulled her Kryptonite weakened body back before Lex could take her with him. The sneer was still on his face the whole way down, a final, weak stab at the Kryptonians watching him fall but, this time, as the dust cleared, his body remained on the ground.

Still.

Dead.

The screens froze and exploded, a shower of sparks lighting the room and the destruction wrought to every implement within it no doubt at some point by Lex’s hands. He had never been good at looking after his toys but this time, mother wasn’t around to cover up for him and put things right.

“… chamber failure…”

“… trial commencing in one minute…”

“… chamber purging…”

“… fifty seconds…”

Lena thrashed around but her wrists and ankles were restrained, preventing her from reaching the glass of the chamber in any direction or the mask covering her face supplying her with oxygen.

“What are you doing awake?”

A spike of fear shot up Lena’s spine as Corben loomed out of the darkness, his face a mask of hate and loathing as he glared at her.

“… stasis chamber purging…”

“You are not getting off so easily, bitch. Mr Luthor’s last instructions before those aliens had him murdered two years ago was to make sure you stayed here until his trial worked! Looks like this is going to be it,” he made a wide gesture, encompassing the spluttering machines on the verge of collapse. “Even if I hadn’t been paid well in advance, it would be my pleasure to do this!”

_Two years!?_

“…chamber—”

“Cancel purging! Commence trial immediately! Final protocol… inject everything that’s left into this bitch!” He leaned closer to the stasis chamber, wiping a clean patch amongst two years worth of dust so he could see the fear in her eyes as the black liquid surged through the tubes Mr Luthor had added more and more to over the years until her body was wired up, every joint and vital part of her wasted body until she looked like some bizarre science experiment cum pin cushion.

“If you make it through this we’ll get to have some fun making all the aliens but especially the supers pay for what they did to Mr Luthor. If you don’t… no skin off my nose.”

He stepped back, watching with anticipation as the first drops of Harun-El reached her and she body thrashed and strained against the pain, whipping the liquid she was held within into a whirlpool of bubbles as she screamed into the mask. Black veins stood out against pale skin, tracking the path of the Harun-El through her body, radiating outwards from all the injection sites.

All too soon her body gave up and the machine monitoring her vitals sounded in alarm as her heart stopped.

Mr Luthor had delighted in telling him about how his mother had used Kryptonite on him in another reality after he had dared to question his methods. John knew his boss had done it as a learning moment for him but, all he could think about since then was how that version of him had become a weapon strong enough to take down the Supers and how if Mr Luthor had used _him_ instead of his worthless sister, he could have been the one to take them down and prove his worth.

His heart and will was stronger than hers. He would have endured and survived the process without the constant need to restart it and killed all the Kryptonians for him.

Taking over from the machines, he cranked up the levels on the defibrillator to maximum, he pressed the activation link on the tablet and held his finger there as her body arched and strained and her heart jolted back to life to receive more and more of the Harun-El.

Her body thrashed even more wildly, the creak and snap of her bones as she strained against the restraints audible even over the warning cries of the machines and the sudden explosion of even more of the screens behind him that had him ducking for cover out of instinct.

Another victim of time and the damage done by the Supers, the lab was crumbling around him, he realised as he glanced around. He took his eyes away from the stasis chamber for only a second knowing how the experiment progressed through its cycle off by heart he had seen it in action so often.

He turned back, so sure that he knew the route of it so well that he almost didn’t even realise that there was a purple glow so bright it became white at the centre emanating from the stasis tube.

Frowning in confusion, he stood up and leaned closer. The realisation of what he was seeing came too late to do more than flex his hands at his side as the thought to shield himself was beaten to the draw by twin beams of light and energy that shattered the thick glass and slammed into his chest with enough force to stop his heart before his body slammed into the bank of TV screens.

~~~~~~~~~~

Lights sparked and flickered, dancing off the liquid pooled around her as she knelt upon the cold, unforgiving floor. Pulled by the slop of the floor, it drained away as slowly and surely as her own memories.

Fingers scrabbling amongst the shards of glass, Lena tried to hold onto herself, chanting facts and figures about herself. But, with every beat of her heart, she slipped away and she was left holding the fine dust that was left of the glass her hands had destroyed.

She didn’t know who she was, why she was there or even where _there_ was.

There was just… pain! It surged through her veins, burning her from the inside out!

Fighting against it, she yanked on the remnants of chains holding her down, her fingers tearing through the thick links like they were made from paper. Hands trembling with the pain, she grasped one of the black filled tubes attached to her left shoulder and pulled and pulled until the thick, six-inch needle had released its hold of bone and tissue with a burst of blood that trickled down her arm.

She felt sick at the sight of it but kept going, yanking more and more from the flesh or her arms and legs. Moving on to her torso before reaching back to grasp the ones dug deep into her spine. Faster and faster in the frantic need to outrun the nausea that roiled and built to a storm as she pulled the long needles out of her skull.

Staggering to her feet, she worked on the tight straps of the restrictive mask. There was something wrong about it. She could feel it in the way her mouth was held open and her throat refused to close as she tried to swallow. Panic welled within her as it moved, setting off another bout of nausea as it refused to move when the straps were loosened.

She yanked on it, a scream following the length of barbed tubing as she pulled it from her throat and threw it away from her as she collapsed to the floor and heaved and coughed out blood and vomit.

Who was she? What had she done to be held and tortured in such a way?

Sobbing brokenly, she pushed herself back to her feet and looked around the room. The nausea returned with the sight of a man slumped upon the floor at the base of a wall covered in broken screens. He looked dead but she was too scared to go nearer to check if he was or not.

A screen burst to life with a scream of static that felt like it was trying to punch through her brain. Wincing, she looked at the too-bright images flickering across the screen, the headline screaming that Superman and Supergirl had killed Lex Luthor as the black and red-clad figures were shown throwing devastating punches, walking away from destroyed buildings and standing over a broken body.

“Warning! Subject escaped! Return to stasis chamber or countermeasures will be deployed in ten… nine…”

The wail of sirens sent her to her knees again, her hands clasped over her ears as the volume stole her ability to think or move. She looked towards the door as the countdown reached five.

She wanted, needed, to escape the deafening cacophony but the noise and pain drove her straight up instead of towards the door.

Defying all logic, her body shot up, crashing through the thick concrete of floor after floor of a building. Around her, she felt the burst of clear air that lay between each level and heard the screams that drove her up until she burst out into the sunlight.

A million lights burst across her vision from the streets below and the tall buildings surrounding her, merging with the sharp scents of people and machines and even the sewage that ran beneath the streets. Worst of all was the overwhelming sound of everything from a car horn, shouts of people just out enjoying themselves, a whisper of voices from a bedroom somewhere, a baby crying, a dog barking in the streets. It didn’t matter where it was, what it was, it all exploded across overwrought senses with the force of a nuclear explosion that threatened to blow her away.

She needed to get away from it before it overwhelmed her! Before she was found and dragged back to the hell she had escaped!

She shot up into the sky, racing against noise and her fears until she rose above it and slowed, her body hovering in a place that lay in the quiet before the Earths atmosphere became space.

Her breathing slowed as she looked at the beauty of the quiet lying just beyond her reach. Maybe they weren’t. She was already well beyond where human’s could exist without the aid of machines to help them do even the simplest of tasks. Maybe if she just let the quiet pull her further she would be okay?

She didn’t know anything about herself or what she could do… maybe she could survive in the vacuum of space? And if she couldn’t… was there anyone that would miss her when she didn’t know herself?

Reaching out she drifted closer to the invisible barrier, the journey to the possible point of no return suddenly halted by a pair of thickly muscled arms clad in a techy blue fabric wrapping around her waist and a red cape that floated around to imprison her against a body.

With a sharp, sudden move that caught them unawares, she broke the tight grip and spun around to face her attacker.

_Superman!_

She knew him from the video where he had killed a man!

Panic flared within her, burning and itching behind her eyes as he reached for her, his mouth moving in a demand to go with him that was lost to the buzzing in her head and drowned out by his surprised grunt of pain as she swung wildly, catching him in his chiselled jaw with a punch that knocked him back towards the ground miles below.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Come on, Smallville, what in the hell are you doing?”

Leaping back into her car, Lois slammed it into gear and put her foot on the accelerator. If she had even a fraction of Clark’s strength, her foot would have gone straight through the footwell and been embedded in the tarmac. As it was, the car shot forwards with a squeal, leaving behind a cloud of smoke and a stripe of rubber on the road as she spun the wheel and pointed the car in the direction she wanted it to go.

Years of being in love and then married to a man that put on a cape and threw himself into danger against foes stronger than himself had honed Lois’ ability to know just where his fool body was going to land just by the trajectory of his body as it fell like a meteor burning through the atmosphere.

Her abilities as a wife of a superhero and ace reporter, also told Lois that her husband wasn’t alone as she could clearly see a trail of purple and bursts of light hitting him.

“Damn it!”

With another spin of the wheel, she executed a pretty impressive handbrake turn as Clark was punched off his original heading and straight through several buildings head first. It was two years since Metropolis had almost been levelled by Lex’s last rampage and all the hard work rebuilding was about to be destroyed.

“Siri, call Kara!”

Calling for help so early in a battle, though Lois failed to see how it could be called early when hours had passed no matter what Clark said, was not like her but Lois had learned to trust her gut and right then, her instincts were screaming at her.

It was a waste of time trying to get the attention of Clark’s buddies in the Justice League as they never answered, not even Bruce who was usually busy lurking around a cave somewhere being all broody and muttering _I’m Batman_ to himself.

Kara, even though she was on the other side of the country, was Clark’s best hope and, thankfully, she always picked up even when she was in the middle of a fight of her own.

“Please pick up,” Lois muttered over and over and she continued to track Clark’s battle back and forth across the city.

“Shit!”

They crashed before her, their bodies gouging a deep furrow across the road that she only just managed to stop the car from ploughing into more by luck than judgement. She was too shocked to scream but she mentally berated him as he, as usual, held back his punches even though the woman he was fighting wasn’t being as generous as she threw inelegant but powerful punches. Her fighting style was desperate bar brawl but it was working.

“Hi, Lois! How are the boys?”

“TV!”

“What?”

“Put on the damn TV, Kara! Double shit! Fight back Smallville! Kara—”

“I’m on my way.”

The strength that radiated through the phone filled Lois with the very thing Kara was the paragon of… Hope.

Abanding phone and car, she raced over ground that had been made uneven by their fight until she found her way to where they were locked in battle, right in the middle of the ruins where the Daily Planet had once stood.

The remains of the globe that had stood atop the building were still there, a twisted metal symbol of what had befallen the city.

Beneath the shadow of it, Lois could see Clark and the woman trading heavy blows. A shiver ran up her spine as the sunlight fell upon her. One glance was more than enough for her to know why Clark had pulled his blows.

Despite evidence to the contrary, she looked like a gust of wind would blow right through pale skin scarred and stained by blood that marred her painfully thin body in a pattern that spoke of pain and abuse. It was so translucent, Lois could see everything beneath it including every bone that showed in stark relief.

Calling her thin was generous at best. Lois had seen skeletons that had more meat on their bones.

Even her face, framed by whisps of hair was sunken in, the bones of her face standing out in sharp relief against her stretched too tight layer of skin. The lower half of her face was stained and dripping with the blood that ran freely from her mouth rendering her only recognisable as human by the shape of her skull that showed through and came into focus as the beams of energy she had been blasting into Clark’s chest faded to reveal pale, milky coloured eyes sunken deep into their sockets.

As chilling as she was to look at, Lois’ heart threatened to stop in her chest as Clark tried to push himself upright using a piece of metal as a brace. His hand slipped and blood glistened in the light as it started to flow from a hand that should have been invulnerable.

Powers spent, he sank back to the ground, his eyes finding hers, pleading with her to leave as the woman picked up a chunk of the Daily Planet as big as a truck and advanced on him.

“No!”

There was no thinking only action as Lois threw herself forward and crouched over her husband protectively. Her hand clenched into the raised fabric of the El sigil worn proudly on his wide chest.

“Please! Please don’t hurt him!” she begged.

The woman stopped. Her eyes blinking slowly, her face relaxing as she looked down at her and the anger bled away.

“Please,” Lois whispered again.

The woman looked up at the chunk of rubble held above her head, an expression that Lois could only read as disbelief on her face as she dropped it to the ground with a thud that shook the ground beneath Lois and shifted Clark beneath her hand. His first movement since she had covered his body with her own.

“Clark…” Lois shook him, pressing on his chest but he remained unmoving and unresponsive beneath her frantic touch. From the corner of her eye, she saw the woman step closer with an outstretched hand. Despite the fresh blood that flowed from her mouth as she opened it, like a scene from a horror movie, Lois saw actual concern in her eyes.

Until something caught her attention up in the sky.

Instinct made Lois look over her shoulder, her gaze finally lighting upon the familiar flash of blue and red in the sky that signalled the imminent arrival of Supergirl. A whoosh of air blew her hair forward over Lois’ face as the woman took off but, as quick as she was, the pale woman was gone, her passing cleaving a trail through the clouds that was already dissipating before Kara landed beside them with a thud.

“Lois!” Kara looked around, her eyes piercing everything they touched as she searched for Clark’s attacker.

“She’s gone.”

“Which direction—” Kara’s feet pressed against the ground, her boots digging shallow craters in rubble as she made ready to take off as soon as Lois pointed her in the direction Clark’s attacker had gone.

“No!” Lois grabbed a hold of Kara’s cape. Thankfully, Kara felt her tug and didn’t take off else that would have been embarrassing for both of them. “Superman needs you. We need you,” she added with a whisper pitched low enough only for Kryptonian ears. “I— I can’t feel him breathing.”

“I’ll take him to—” Kara’s voice trailed off with the realisation that she couldn’t very well take her cousin to the nearest hospital and they no longer had the DEO to fall back on. “Crap.”

“He’s blown his powers but they’ll know who he is even if we take him there not at...” she made a quick gesture to mimic him flying that had the crinkle deepening between Kara’s brows as she tried to work it out. “And… the General is here,” she added with a growl of frustration that was echoed by Kara.

Her father was many things… most of them not very good when it came to anything alien and the realisation that his son-in-law was the source of his main alien griping and his grandsons were half-alien would _not_ go over well. At the very least, he would have them all locked up but she wouldn’t put it past him to allow them to be experimented on. It was not an easy thing to know that her father was monster enough to do that but she knew he was.

“Alex and the others are on their way in the Legion cruiser, we’ll take him to the fortress.” Kara pressed her finger to her ear, activating the comms link. “Brainy, get here as fast as you can.”

“We’re two minutes outside of the limits of Metropolis, five from your location—”

“We need you now, not in five minutes,” Kara cut him off as she picked up on the sound of heavy vehicles heading their way. “Now, Brainy!”

Seconds later the sleek spaceship appeared above them leaving behind a wave of broken windows in its wake. Lois barely had time to notice it’s arrival before a light shimmered around them and she felt a strange tugging low in her gut that rumbled into nauteous waves as the bright, futuristic walls of the bridge, command centre or whatever they called that part of the ship in the 31st century appeared before her along with the concerned eyes of Nia Nal.

“Need me to hold your hair back for you, Ms Lane? Or is that Kent now?”

“Still Lane on the bylines, just Lois to our friends. Hair holding… maybe later when we have time.” Lois swallowed down her nausea and hauled herself upright with Nia’s help to follow Kara as she picked Clark up and carried him deeper into the ship. “The journey to Argo while pregnant with Kryptonian babies that played football with my bladder the whole way was smoother than that,” Lois let her voice rise deliberately.

Nia baulked, her face paling at the picture Lois painted. “Brainy is out of practice,” she apologised, ignoring the offended look he gave her. Guiding the way as Kara had already sped out of sight, she got them to the small, scarily futuristic-looking medical bay through the maze of plain, unmarked doors that meandered around the ship to where Alex was looking at the readings displayed above the bed Kara had placed her cousin upon for the journey to the Fortress of Solitude.

Lois rushed to his side, her eyes fixed upon his bruised and swollen face. With a trembling hand, she brushed her fingers over his where they lay on the bed at his side. She was terrified that she might hurt him… scared almost more that he was beyond feeling her touch ever again.

“You kind of always assume that being what us pitiful humans call invulnerable that means we never have to see their stubborn hides out like this,” Lois muttered quietly for Alex’s benefit as much as her own and simple need to fill the silence between the beeps and squarks of the monitors.

“Never goes that way though, does it?” Alex replied with an understanding smiled. She placed a hand on Lois’ where it had come to rest upon Clark’s chest.

They had never really spent much time together, physical distance and the fact that Clark had dumped Kara on their doorstep had created a rift between their families that had lasted for years. But, the common ground of troublesome knowing and loving a Kryptonian that got themselves into trouble too often, drew them together, creating a bond on understanding between them.

“He’ll be okay, Lois. They,” she gestured to Clark and Kara, “are too stubborn to keep down.”

“And we’re too stubborn to let them stay there.” Leaning down, Lois found a place on his cheek that was a little less bruised than the rest of him and pressed her lips to it. She screwed her eyes shut as tears pricked her eyes. “I am going to kick your ass from one end of Martha’s farm to the other when you wake up, Smallville. You see if I don’t,” she whispered against his cheek.

“I’ll go check in with Brainy and see how much longer the flight will be. And see if M’gann and Nia have got a heading on whoever that was.”

“Kara,” Lois called after her, stilling her before the door could close behind her. “I don’t know what caused her to attack Clark but… Kara, she could have killed him but she stopped when I asked her.”

“Lois—”

“Look at the footage, Kara. I’m sure there will be a lot of it online by now. I’ve learned to trust my gut feelings and right now it is screaming at me. And not just because of the wibbly-wobbly beam up. She could fly, she had heat vision and matched him punch for punch. Someone somehow had the ability to hold and torture a Kryptonian. She was hurting and confused. I saw it in her eyes. She looked… She looked haunted.”

The journey to the Fortress of Solitude was a strange combination of fast and not fast enough as far as Lois was concerned but, with Brainy able to put the hammer down on the Legion cruiser it wasn’t long before the ship was landing in the deep snow outside the doors of the fortress.

Wrapped up in the thick jacket Alex insisted she wore, she trudged through the snow and icy wind, following the path that Kara forged with Clark in her arms. Their capes cracked back in the stiff wind, standing out like smears of old blood amongst the white.

Lois shivered at the sight, her mind darting back to the blood that had flowed from the woman’s mouth, coating her chin and throat. Kryptonian’s did not wound easily, Clark was evidence of that but somehow, she had fought while spewing blood.

When they reached the door, Kara handed Clark over to M’gann, the white Martian bearing his weight with ease until she unlocked the door using the key that only a Kryptonian was strong enough to lift. It had to be the worst security measure ever, one she took great delight in teasing Clark about every time they came here. Luckily, there were better security measures within in the form of their scary computer she was sure was out to get her, and Kelex who glided out of wherever it was he stayed when the fortress was empty of life as they reached the chamber that housed the towering ice sculptures of Kara and Clark’s parents.

“Greetings Kara Zor-El…”

Lois wasn’t sure if Kelex was programmed with anything that resembled emotions but the unit seemed to stagger back in midair, the light on his head dimming slightly as it saw Clark in Kara’s arms.

“How may I be of service?”

“Prep one of the healing chambers.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Kara pulled the edges of her cape around herself. She hated waiting. Hated feeling helpless. Especially there, the one place on Earth that was built from the ruins of the planet she had lost. It was Clark that had found it first but, as he had been a baby when he had been put in his pod and sent to Earth, he’d had no memories of the rich culture on Krypton like she did and hadn’t even thought to share it with her until she had taken up the cape and become Supergirl.

As she walked around, all she could think about was the times that Lena had been there. Two of those times had ended in pain both physical and mental but after that, once the rift between them had started to heal, at least she had thought it had. Kara had taken Lena there again, determined to forge new memories of Lena upon Krypton soil.

She had hoped in her heart to take Lena to Argo one day. The wish had been so alive in her mind that she still dreamed of it, of seeing Lena dressed in Kryptonian clothing, walking at her side through the market there or the gardens. There was a flower there than reminded her of Plumeria's and Kara had wanted Lena to see them and everything else that had survived Krypton.

“Hey.”

Kara dashed her hand across her face, wiping away the tears streaming down her cheeks. “How’s Clark doing?”

“No change yet. Kelex and Lois are taking turns hovering over him. Brainy and Nia are watching them like they expect a fight to break out between them at any moment. If that happens, my money is on Lois.”

“Mine too,” Kara chuckled lightly.

“I know you care deeply for Clark but… those tears weren’t for him. I know you,” she stated quietly but firmly at the glance Kara gave her from the corner of her eyes. “When you first came to live with us, you used to cry like that a lot. Lately—”

“Don’t say it,” Kara begged. “Please, don’t say her name.”

“Okay, I won’t,” Alex sighed sadly. “Is it okay if I hold you then?”

“Always,” Kara got out past the lump in her throat as she fell into her sister’s arms and held her as tightly as humanly possible.

No matter what though, the ache for Lena still remained, lodged deep within Kara’s broken heart.

It always would.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN - action is HARD to write! Especially this story. I keep seeing it more as images from a comic but I feel like I'm out of practice and having trouble describing what I'm seeing.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN - Do not get used to quick posts like this. I would love to guarantee them but it depends on the muses. Right now, they are playing nice but that is often not the case.

She flew on and on. Racing across sprawling cities, mountains, deserts and oceans for hour upon hour. Searching, hoping that something would make sense or jog a memory. All spent while avoiding the planes, helicopters and missiles that were aimed at her when she flew too low over less tolerant countries as well as a flash of blue and blue in the sky that would signal a Super on her trail.

How she knew who and what they were was lost to her but, she knew them. She knew there was two of them on Earth and what they could do. She knew their strengths and weaknesses. She knew that what she had done to Superman was done using powers akin to theirs even though she couldn’t really remember much of the fight or what had happened before he had grabbed her from behind.

The blood on her hands and the lingering image of a slumped body said he had been there because of her. She was obviously dangerous but she just didn’t know why that was. It was all a blur until the pleas of the woman shielding Superman’s body with her own had broken through and she had realised what she was about to do.

Luckily, there had been no sign of them since her one glimpse of Supergirl with her face a fierce mask of anger and determination, her golden hair and blue eyes catching the light that she’d got before she had flown away leaving Superman battered and broken in the dirt.

The Earth passed far beneath her, land and seas blurring together as she flew around and around it looking for something, a place, anything, that meant something to her. She knew the continents she flew over but when she moved closer it was as meaningless to her as looking at a tiny piece of a map that had no place names or coordinates on it. Factually she knew what the Eiffel Tower and the Great Sphinx of Giza looked like and where they were but, beyond that… There was nothing to say if those facts were there because she might have read about them or if she had visited them at some point in her life.

Everything was just another piece to add to the puzzle that was her existence.

Her face grew damp with hopeless tears filled with despair and anguish that mingled with the moisture from clouds she flew through as she circled the planet over and over in a restless, futile search for somewhere to rest and answers. Finally, her body grew too weary, her eyes drooping, her body growing lax as darkness closed in around her. She started to lose height until she was free-falling, the sunset painted sky fading in and out between blinks that grew longer and longer.

The sun fell as she did, their paths meeting upon the horizon as she crashed heavily into a field of corn, her body sending up a spray of soil and plants that caught the fading light before falling back around her, covering her in dusty soil and broken stems.

Time passed. Minutes.? Hours? Days? She wasn’t sure how long and didn’t care to know.

There was peace there, everything finally muffled after being too loud with her powers drained and it dragged her under, pulling her towards a sleep she didn’t want. The memories she had forged since waking were terrible but, she was scared to lose them. Scared that Supergirl or someone else might find her and lock her away.

She was scared.

But she slept.

Dreaming of a bright smile that warmed her body and heart like the sun. A warm feeling started at her fingers and toes and radiated up in tingles through her body. Golden hues and the bluest skies that suffused her with a euphoric energy that finally roused her from sleep.

Her back arched, pulling her until she floated upright, her feet hovering above the wide circle of dead corn that stretched nearly twenty feet in each direction, surrounded where her body had lain all night.

She had drained the energy they had gathered from the sun during the day from them. How she knew that she had no idea, but know it she did. There was no time to ponder the problem that was her amnesia though as she could hear the sound of armoured trucks filled with people cocking weapons heading in her direction along with the beating of helicopter blades cutting through the air.

She ran through the field, picking a speed that was faster than anything a human could reach but also didn’t disturb the crops too much until she was clear enough to shoot straight up into the sky.

Several states over, she landed again and quietly helped herself to clothes drying on a line or two until she was clothed in something better than the bloodied and tattered beige lycra shorts and sports bra like top she had escaped in. She felt terrible for stealing but it wasn’t like she had friends she could go to for help or money to buy anything. She swore she would find a way to repay everyone she took from though.

Shoes were impossible to find without taking her thieving to a level she didn’t feel comfortable with. Fortunatly, she found that didn’t feel the cold or pain from even the most uneven of ground. Also, the length of the jeans she had _borrowed_ , covered the fact that her bare feet so no one looked at her twice as she walked or even hovered down the streets of the small town she had decided to land in, to plan her next move.

She stopped at the display window of a small electronics shop, hiding her face beneath her recently procured worn, black hoodie as she pretended to look at what was on sale within as several army trucks rolled by. She watched them out of the corner of her eye, the TV’s in the window helpfully replaying news footage of her punching Superman into the ground just in case anyone wondered why they were there.

Only, the woman on the screen looked nothing like the reflection in the window. She wasn’t sure what had changed overnight but her face looked like a face. Thankfully the blood was all but gone but she was dirty from crashing into a field and from flying through pollution and maybe a little on the pale side and her jaw looked strong to the point of belligerent stubbornness in her opinion but, as faces went there was nothing of the skeletal figure someone had apparently given the ridiculous moniker of _The Ghost_.

“Ghost? Really?” Who named these people? There were ‘Bats’ aplenty in Gotham to the point that it was a wonder there wasn’t an Aunt, Uncle or Cousin to join the ranks of Man, Woman and Girl. Super _man_ and Super _girl_ which girl? Really? Why did he get the more adult moniker while she got ‘girl’?

So many of them seemed to get called names that were based on their gender or abilities and she got _The Ghost_? Rolling her eyes at that, she turned away from the window, keeping her back to the last of the passing trucks just in case as she did so. She could almost have been offended if she wasn’t planning on keeping a low profile.

Let them look for the thing on the TV. She didn’t know much about herself but she knew that wasn’t her.

“Stupid, goddamn, useless hunk of—!”

A dull, metallic thud and a yelp followed the outcry, drawing her attention across the road to where a beaten-up, blue and white pickup piled high with bags of feed and seed had obviously broken down and was resisting the urgings of its owners boot kicking at its tyre to start again. Much to the obvious amusement of the jovial woman with ruddy cheeks, leaning across the seats to stick her head out of the window to watch and offer advice.

“Ya know, you could try helpin’ instead of just sittin’ there,” he grumbled with a mock glower that drew his bushy eyebrows together and deepened the already deep, weathered lines across his forehead that, along with his bushy beard and beer belly, made him look like a grumpy dark-haired Santa.

“Now, where would the fun be in that, Justin? Is it the radiator again?”

“Damned if I know, Amy,” he groused, sticking his head back under the hood to have another wiggle of anything that looked like it could be wiggled. “Just know it’s the last thing we needed today. We’ve got things that need doing and fixing and precious little time or money to do them. But, looks like I’ll ‘ave to go drag Olly out of the bar again so he can tow this heap of shit home.”

“I could give it a look… If you want?” she amended as the older couple looked her way. It was all but impossible to judge their age accurately with how life and the weather had added lines to their ruddy faces that didn’t go with their demeanour that took years off them. But, if she had to, she would put them somewhere in their mid to late fifties.

“You know ‘bout engines?” Justin querried cautiously, strangly drawn to believe the girl despite or maybe because of the dirt clinging to her body if not her clothing that was obviously several sizes too big for her. In a town populated by hard working farmers used to having the dirt they worked and the scent of their aminals ingrained into every pore, she looked rough.

But she was willing to help.

“Maybe. At least, I feel like I know them,” she shrugged almost regretting her desire to help out that had overridden her need to keep a lower than low profile.

“Let her take a look, Justin. Not like she could make it any worse if she kicks it too,” Amy teased, winking at the young woman as she earning a pout from her husband.

Amy was very wrong on both counts but she hoped she could be successful on the later and wouldn’t resort to punting the vehicle down the road or clean over the building and revealing herself.

“Actually, there are. These engines are temperamental beasts sometimes,” she muttered as she moved closer, standing in the towering shadow of Justin’s bear-like presence to look under the rusty hood. “Main problem, besides the cambelts wearing and ripping the engine to hell far too often is… Yep,” she grunted, “rusty connections right there… Have you got a wire brush at all?” she asked as she popped her head back into the open.

A quick repair later and the engine was purring… well it was running which was an obvious improvement. Smiling in satisfaction, she dropped the hood back into place and turned to find Justin standing there with his jaw dropped wide open, staring at her like she had grown a second head.

“What?” she squeaked uncertainly.

“Ya _feel_ like ya now engines, huh?”

“Yes?”

“Hmm. Name’s Justin Bennet by the way. My good wife, Amy,” sticking out his hand, he took hers in a firm grasp she barely seemed to feel, pumping it up and down with vigour. “How do ya feel about tractors, combine and engines like that?”

“They’re okay, I guess?”

“Justin?”

“Come work fer us.”

“Work for—”

“Take a look at our vehicles, help out around the farm where yer can. We can’t pay ya but you’ll be well-fed, have a roof over yer head and we’ll even throw in some boots for ya.” He nodded down to her bare feet poking out from the end of her ill-fitting jeans.

“I would be happy to help out. But—”

“But?”

“Only if it’s what your wife wants too.”

“Amy, what d’ya say?”

“I’m more than happy to have some company that isn’t your ugly mug,” she chuckled, taking the edge off her goodnatured jibe with a kiss to his cheek. “Maybe with some help we can keep those damned wolves from the door.”

“Wolves?”

“Of the two-legged, snake-in-the-grass kind from the bank,” Justin growled beneath his breath. “They won’t admit it but they’re in league with some city-livin’ stuffed suit whose tryin’ ta buy up all the land. Takin’ advantage of the situation.”

“What situation?” she asked as she climbed into the truck next to Amy.

“First time in generations, the wells are all running dry. One year of that can be rode through by the skin of your teeth but three… that can ruin even the most prepared. Crops fail, the herds can’t graze. It costs more and more to get anything and when the farms go in a place like this—”

“So does the town,” she nodded once sadly in understanding of their plight.

“Exactly.” Placing her hand on her husband’s shoulder, Amy gave it a firm squeeze, urging him to calm down. “Oh! I didn’t catch your name earlier.”

“Yeah, about that,” she sighed.

The truth was likely to have the couple screaming for help and the army shooting at her so she stuck to a much tamed down version that made no mention of powers or beating Superman up with them. Instead, she said she had been in an accident and lost her memories. She felt sure they were going to call BS on her when she said that the hospital had released her because with no identification she had no insurance to pay for treatment but, with how healthcare worked, or rather how it didn’t work when you had no money, they were all too willing to swallow her lie.

“So you have no idea of who you are or where you’re from?”

“No.”

“Oh, you poor thing!”

It wasn’t a lie or even a half-truth but it still sat heavily in her chest but, with a sudden turn of speed given the restraints of the seatbelts, Amy suddenly had her in a strong hug that caught her unawares. She stiffened for a moment as a sudden memory of a light, tropical floral shampoo and the scent of ozone trapped within golden hair came to her like a spark across her mind. It faded away like a dream, leaving behind an ache as she relented and relaxed into Amy’s hug and breathed in the scents that clung to her.

“We need a name to call you.”

“You still want me to stay and help even though…”

“Without your help, we would be waiting on Olly to tow us home. And, we were brought up to help people that need help. Now, a name?”

She fished around through her empty mind, the only thing coming to mind one that her tale offered up. “Hospitals call unidentified people, Jane Doe.”

“Nope, that won’t do! Given half a chance, Justin watches too many crime procedural shows. Jane Doe just makes me think of dead bodies,” she shuddered.

Hiding a smile at Justin’s eye-rolling, she looked around for inspiration and finally saw a bookshop further down the road that made her fingers itch to flip through pages and follow the black lines of printed words as she got lost within a million different worlds crafted by talented minds.

It was a desire that didn’t get her any closer to a name… Until…

“How about Sarah?” she suggested as she read the name of the only female author amongst so many men on a display of books in the store window.

“Sarah sounds like a fine name. Pleasure to meet you, Sarah. We’ll work on a surname later, hmm? If you prove to be as good with the farm vehicles as this thing, I for one wouldn’t mind if you borrowed our surname.”

“I think I could be a little too old to be adopted but lets see how the repairs go.” Smiling softly, frankly shocked that she was still sitting there and not being kicked out of the truck, she placed her hands within Amy’s offered one to be shook. She had a name now, Sarah, a fine name according to Amy. There was even the possibility it could be her real name, what did she know, but, she still felt lost. Incomplete.

She settled back in the seat as the truck bounced forward under the press of Justin’s heavy foot and picked up speed towards the outskirts of the small town. Not that there was far to go with how small it was. Looking through the windows, the closeness of them, was an unexpected torture that had her digging her nails into her own thigh until the popping of stitching forced her to focus on her control before the hint of purple she could see building in the reflection of her eyes could burst forth.

She looked beyond the glass to the world passing by beyond it as the truck juddered and bounced along roads that grew increasingly poorer and less maintained. Dust and dirt billowed up around them, blowing off fields of sparse, poorly growing crops that stretched for miles around.

It all fit in with what Justin and Amy had said but… she sat up straighter in the seat, forcing her butt to keep in contact with the cracked vinyl covering as she almost hovered out of it.

When she had been flying towards the town she had seen the landscape for miles beyond and it had been rich and full of life, supplied with water flowing through wide rivers and further fed from more that came down from high in the mountain range.

It started an itch in her mind that built and built. Nagging at her that something was wrong there, something was going on that no one else had noticed.

“Motherfuckers!”

Jolted out of her thoughts, her head whipped around to take in the huge construction vehicles parked up in a fenced-in area like giant metallic vultures hovering around the hollowed-out remains of what looked to have once been farm buildings. The former owner was no doubt a victim of what was threatening the Bennets.

“Language, Justin!” Amy admonished, patting Sarah on the leg in apology for her husband’s outburst.

“How much have they taken over?”

“Too damn much,” Justin gritted out. “That was one of the biggest farms around and one of the first to go. And… if they couldn’t stand up to that bastard, Morgan Edge, what chance is there for the rest of us?”

“Edge?” The name crawled up her spine with a slimy slither, setting her teeth inexplicably on edge.

“Rumour is, he was all in with that Luthor fella but after that came crashing down there was nothing to tie him to them and he got off scotfree.”

It took a further twenty minutes of Justin grumbling furiously and leaning even heavier on the accelerator to get the vehicles out of his sight before he turned the wheel sharply and took them down a path that was even more bumpy and dusty. It was so bad that she was starting to wonder if she was going to get whiplash and she had been punched in the face by Superman!

Finally, before she gave in and flew out of the window to escape, buildings, worn but picture-perfect, came into sight and Justin seemed to calm enough to lift his foot a touch.

Two hound dogs bounded out of hiding from between the buildings with a flurry of excited barks and baying howls, and windmilling tails that threatened to whip up a storm of dust as they ran to greet the pickup and as it pulled into the yard.

“Todd! Copper! Calm down ya idgits before ya scare our guest off befer’ ya even meet ‘er!” Justin chuckled as he held out his hands and let the wiggling and winding of the dogs do the work of rubbing them for him. Well trained, they sank to their haunches at his signal and waited to be introduced to their guest.

“Unlike Justin, our boys are perfect gentlemen,” Amy teased her husband as Sarah stood back with an uncertain look on her face. “They won’t bother you if you’d rather not—”

“No, that’s okay. I was just trying to think if it jogged the memory of owning a dog.”

“And?”

“Not a thing,” she shrugged wryly. “I do know they are gorgeous though,” stepping closer, she stretched out a hand for them to sniff at. “And you’re right, perfect gentlemen,” she chuckled as they broke ranks and leaned heavily against her, their soft brown eyes looking at her with canine love and long tongues lolling out of their mouths as they rushed ahead of them to the house.

With Amy’s hand a gentle brand at the small of her back, she allowed herself to be steered after the dogs and the bear-like form of Justin as he shook off the mood that had caused him to drive erratically with every step on familiar ground. With every step of her own, she chanted her chosen name in her head, _Sarah, Sarah_ , hoping the repetition would make it stick and feel familiar.

One thing in its favour, it wasn’t the name of the thing that had tried to kill Superman. She was _Sarah_.

Not The Ghost.

 _Sarah_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN - Hopefully Lena's name change won't get too confusing (mostly to me) but from now on, she will be Sarah Bennet, which was Katie's character in Slasher... thought it sounded more country than Saskia ;) If anyone sees me missing the h off her name, call me on it, when I was in school I knew a Sarah, later on, I knew a Sara and my fingers still mess up the names :p


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN - A shorter chapter than I would like to put out but I've been in so much pain lately that I needed to get something out after it eased enough to let me write something.
> 
> AN 2 - I do not know a single thing about therapy other than every character on Supergirl needs some. So, if Kelly's advice is bad, that is on me. Having Kelly treat her girlfriend and her girlfriend's sister is no doubt a major no-no but, this is a fanfiction based on a show about superheroes where the paid writers can't be bothered to remember that Lena was at the FOS in season 2 and royally F'd up their own show after Crisis.
> 
> AN 3 - Don't forget, Sarah is Lena but as she doesn't know her name, I will be referencing her as Sarah from her POV and that of people who don't know she's really Lena o.O

The Fortress of Solitude lay far beneath Kara’s feet. The only vestiges of Krypton on Earth was visible through the snow that whipped around her body in a blinding maelstrom of white against the darkness of the night, only with the aid of her vision enhanced by the powers given to her by the yellow sun.

Her cape whipped around her, the thick material shedding the persistent snow and ice that had formed a thick layer over the rest of her body despite her naturally higher temperature with each heavy crack but Kara was unmoved by the fury of the weather, the cold or anything else that fought to distract her from her ritual.

Her lips moved, silently forming a prayer to Rao, pleading for guidance.

Kara had struggled with her religion over the years but, since Lena death… Since Lena, Kara amended her thoughts around the stab of pain, she had found a comfort in the ritual of prayer that was almost meditative. Each day she used her time of prayer to calm her thoughts and body, stilling the roar of sound around her and the disquiet of her heart so she could look outwards or, more accurately, so she could listen outwards.

Even up there, with the roar and whistle of the wind, she listened. Focussing on the cadence of a heart lost to her, she searched no matter where she was in the world. It was a bitter-sweet exercise as, even as it reminded her that Lena was gone, it also reminded her of all the times she had listened to Lena’s heart and what emotions caused its beat to change subtly.

With her prayer coming to an end, Kara opened her eyes and swiped the tracks of frozen tears off her cheeks as she drifted back down towards the Fortress.

They had not left the Fortress since they had flown Clark there but, days later, there was still that special sensation of stepping onto Krypton soil even though her feet had paced upon it for hours at a time. Everything was hushed and reverent beneath its vaulted ceilings and the blank gaze of the giant statues formed of ice. Even Kara’s steps sounded hushed as she walked in their shadows, following the same path she had walked with Lena once before.

Even though that time had ended pretty terribly, she still remembered the fluttering of butterflies in her stomach that day. The inexplicable importance of having Lena there that she was still coming to terms with.

Why had she not realised sooner that, from sharing her favourite foods, books, movies and even that small slither of Krypton, she’d always felt more than what was an appropriate level of joy when Lena liked the same things compared to her other ‘friends’. Even when she didn’t there was a joy in hearing Lena’s differing opinions and having her own listened to without judgement.

The sight of a figure dressed in an elegant peacoat, long, dark hair hanging loosely around their shoulders had Kara’s heart lifting… until they turned and Kara was faced with a face that was loved but not as much as Lena’s.

“Hi, Kelly.” Kara tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice but she saw by the look of calm understanding in her dark eyes that only Kelly was capable of, that she had failed to hide her feelings once again. Her sister’s girlfriend didn’t challenge her on it though, unlike Alex, that wasn’t her way. Instead, she gave her a lingering hug that Kara fell into, breathing in the calm scent that seemed to be a part of her. “I’m glad you’re here. You- erm, you’re not too mad at Alex are you?”

“Mad at Alex? You mean for forgetting she even had a girlfriend and ignoring my texts for days?”

“Mhm.” Feeling like a child caught playing in her father’s lab without permission again, Kara shuffled from foot to foot, her fingers tangling with the hem of her cape.

Casting a quick look around for her very apologetic girlfriend, Kelly leaned closer to whisper even though it was pretty much pointless with Kara being Supergirl. “I wasn’t mad to begin with. I’ve already told Alex that twice but she’s not willing to listen yet. She’s already promised to arrange a date at that fancy new Italian place in town and put aside a weekend to get away together.”

“You’re not—”

“Kara, I know how much Alex loves me and I also know that there are some things that are more important than replying to a text. I’m going out with a woman who helps saves lives and the world on the regular, all we can promise each other is to try and make it home at the end of the day.”

Kara wasn’t sure why she had expected anything different from Kelly after all the years she had put up with what they did and even suiting up as Guardian to help when things got dire.

“I don’t say this enough but, I’m glad Alex has got you in her life.”

“She has the advantage of coming with a superpowered sister who, if she lets Alex work things out for herself might be able to milk a dessert from the Italian restaurant out of it. Deal?”

Kara wasn’t one to pass up on dessert too often but she didn’t really have to say anything as her stomach let out a growl of anticipation at the idea but she stuck out her hand and gave Kelly’s an enthusiastic pump to seal the deal.

“Where is Alex?”

“She went off to check on your cousin. I wanted to see how you were doing first.” When she had been younger, she had almost hated Superman for how James had grabbed hold of his cape, abandoning her because of his need to be a hero She had blamed the hero for that and had let Clark and Lois know just how she had felt until, years later, she had come to the realisation that James was responsible for James.

It had made her question her decision to become involved with Alex, especially after losing her first love to war, but in the end, love had won out. There was danger everywhere in all walks of life. Love was not as certain and needed nurturing and holding on to like the precious thing it was.

“I’m,” sighing under the weight of Kelly’s steady gaze, Kara ran her hand through her hair, releasing a shower of snow and ice trapped within the strands. They both knew what Kelly was asking… the advantage and disadvantage of having her, hopefully, one day soon if Alex would pluck up the nerve, sister-in-law as her therapist.

“It still hurts,” she admitted with a sigh as they sat on one of the ice benches around the perimeter of the cavernous room. “I don’t think it ever won’t.”

Kelly felt her jaw tightening at Kara’s words knowing that phrasing usually followed someone telling Kara she needed to let go. “You’ve lost a lot, Kara. More than I, than anyone, can even imagine. Grieving takes time.”

“I know—”

“Sometimes we need to hear it again and again though. There is no limit on grieving. It is personal to everyone. There are days, years, when the pain of losing my dad is so muted it feels like it isn’t even there and then I will remember a scent or hear something that reminds me of his voice and it all comes back. I used to hold it all in even from James.”

“What helped?” Kara whispered the question that had plagued her for years brokenly.

“Time. And doing exactly this,” Kelly squeezed Kara’s hand reassuringly. “You are allowed to grieve. You are allowed to feel everything and nothing. You’re even allowed to hate them for leaving.”

“I hated my parents for the longest time,” Kara admitted softly. “They just made me leave without considering what I would want. And then I failed them and wasn’t there for Kal like I’d promised.” She shook her head, unwilling to dip into those memories again for fear she would end up as trapped in them as she had the Phantom Zone. “Lena… It felt like everyone wanted me to hate her but… I loved— I love her. What hurts is that I didn’t realise in time to tell her.”

Alex stopped at the base of the statue of Kara’s father, leaning into the shadow of it to give Kelly and Kara time to talk. She couldn’t hear what was being said but she could guess by the way Kara’s haunched shoulders were shaking with tears as Kelly held her.

She had been so focussed on protecting Kara since Clark had left her with them, that it was still hard to shake the habit even though Kara had saved her more times than she could count. It was a narrowminded view and purpose in life had blinkered her to Kara’s feelings.

Her overriding need to protect had led to her not trusting Lena from day one because of her last name no matter how often she had proven herself to be on their side. In her defence though, Lena had been brought up in an unloving household, manipulated by Lex and Lillian at every turn, and taught to keep her cards close to her chest to protect herself from hurt but, they- _she_ \- should have trusted Kara.

A bitter pill to swallow was the one wrapped in a heteronormative layer forced on her by her peers and society in general, the same one that had stopped her from realising that she herself wasn’t as straight as she had always thought had stopped her from seeing the same in Kara.

Maggie had always said that her gaydar was lacking and, looking back on all the glaring signs. All the lunch dates, the movie nights turned into sleepovers. Filling Kara’s office with flowers. How Kara had flown around the world for Lena’s favourite foods. Lena buying CatCo and persuading her not to give up on being Kara when the rest of them had failed. Not to mention the way Kara always talked about Lena and the way Lena had gone into a full meltdown at the reveal… All that led her to wonder if she had discovered her own sexuality too late to even develop a gaydar.

“Alex, is Clark okay?”

Alex stepped out from the shadows and walked quickly across the icy ground before her sister could start to panic. “He stable and being fussed over by Lois and Kelex so… no change yet.” She gave Kelly a tentative smile, looking for forgiveness and missing the wink Kelly gave Kara. Maybe she needed to offer more than just a weekend away? And getting Kara on her side to put in a good word for her wouldn’t go amiss even if it would probably cost her a literal ton of potstickers.

“Brainy and Nia are still going over everything they can find about the Ghost,” she grimaced at the name Lois had given Superman’s attacker in her hastily written story to cover her and Clark’s absence from Metropolis. “The last they think they found was a report of some damaged crops that came up on a conspiracy theory site. They’re looking into it now.”

“Even with powers and looking how they did, there are too many places for one person to hide,” Kara sighed, a restless hand raking through her hair again.

If Kara was able to hide in plain sight, Alex knew that Kara was right, there was little hope in finding someone that didn’t want to be found unless they slipped up and revealed themselves again.

Kara worried at her hair with a restless hand again, the wet strands catching upon her fingers and the edge of her suit. Even with Kelly’s help, there were too many memories there within the vaulted halls and chambers. Too many accusing looks coming from the blank icy stares of the statues that sent her back into past and drowned her on the crushing, heavy waves of the promise she had made to protect Kal.

A promise she had failed to keep just as she had failed in her promise to always be there for Lena.

“I need to get out of here.”

“We’ll find them,” Alex stated with more surety than she was feeling. Snagging Kara’s wrist in a firm grasp in an effort to keep her from fleeing.

“I know.”

Kelly pulled Alex back before she could do anything stupid as Kara shrugged her off easily and took off back into the night at a speed that left a blur of colour on her retinas. “Give her some space and time, Alex. She’ll be back. And when she does…?” she prompted.

“I’ll use my ears and not my voice,” Alex repeated Kelly’s often given, little used, advice.

“Good girl.”

“Kelly!” Alex looked around furtively, her face glowing red at Kelly’s teasing. The last thing she needed was for Nia or Brainy to hear something like that. At least it had served to take her mind of her sister even just for a moment as the concern soon flooded back as she thought about her no doubt praying and beating herself up over ‘what ifs’.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sarah… she held onto the name, repeating it over and over in an effort to make it her own as she stared blindly up at the ceiling of the spare bedroom she had been urged to call her own. As she listened to the creaks and groans of the farmhouse settling, her hands fidgeting at her sides, blunt nails plucking at the thread of the blankets stretched across the narrow mattress.

Across the hall, she could hear the sounds of bodies shifting and loud snoring from the couple that had generously taken in a stranger who didn’t even know herself.

Their generosity was soothing but she didn’t dare close her eyes. When she tried, she only saw flashes of what she knew had to be memories of being surrounded by water that felt claustrophobic, a pain that was blinding, and a face smirking mockingly at her. And then there were colours; blue, red… hair of golden blonde that shone in the sun… purple burning from her eyes… blackness ripping her apart with shards of pure agony!

The light of purple washed across the ceiling, seeping from her eyes to push aside the colours of moonlight bleeding through the window at her side.

She clasped her hands over her eyes, a desperate whimper rising in her throat as light exploded behind closed lids from the pressure of her fingers. Rolling from the bed in a blind panic, she slowly uncurled and peeked out from behind her fingers, her curiosity overcoming her fear when it dawned on her that she hadn’t hit the floor.

“Oh, right. Forgot I can fly,” she giggled nervously, fear bleeding out and turning it into a near sob.

She couldn’t stay there. Not when she was one blink or bad memory from razing the farmhouse to the ground and killing Justin and Amy.

Making use of her powers, Sarah dressed quickly and flew quietly out of the bedroom window. The thought that she probably looked like Peter Pan made her wonder what strange quirk of fate or makeup of her brain it was that allowed her to remember a character out of a book but not any part of her life including reading the book or watching the ridiculous Disney version, tucked up under a thick blanket while smiling around a slice of pizza at someone at her side saying every line and sword fighting with their own slice of pizza?

Maybe I should have picked the name Pan-elope or Wendy? She mused to herself as she floated upwards, rising up through the darkness until the farm was just a speck below her feet. Not that it would have made any difference other than to serve as an inside joke as neither name meant any more to her than Sarah or Ghost did.

Justin and Amy… those were names that meant something. In just a matter of hours, they had come to represent a strength and kindness she was loath to let down. She couldn’t put them at risk though, not when their livelihoods was already under threat the dual threat posed by the water shortage and Edge.

Looking down at the land, Sarah couldn’t help but feel that the dual-threat was in fact a singular one. Further afield, she could see the lushness of the land supplied by the same mountain born rivers but there was a definite line where it all just started to die away in a specific pattern that targeted the farms.

Sarah didn’t know anything about who she had been before but, she felt sure that if she hadn’t been before, she wasn’t going to be the kind of person to not do anything less than her best to find out what was going on.

The more she looked, the more convinced she became that there was a mystery to solve as well as some farm machines to fix… preferably without burning anything down or doing anything else that would draw attention to herself.


	6. Chapter 6

A familiar gust of air ruffled Alex’s hair despite its short style and ability to withstand hand-to-hand combat. It preceded the sudden appearance of Kara at Clark’s bedside and brought with her the particular scent of ozone that clung to her body that, even if Alex hadn’t already known, would have revealed that Kara had been out floating high above the Earth praying to her god.

Normally, Alex would have admonished her sister for speeding inside, it made her nervous with the Fortress of Solitude being made of ice but, as Clark had finally woken up and been allowed out of the healing chamber by Kelex, Alex was only surprised that Kara had managed to keep her speed through the Fortress below a point where she would break the sound barrier.

“Clark!” Kara reached out for her cousin excitedly but held back at the last moment, her fingers trembling with restraint uncertainly above his hand where it lay against the thin blanket draped over him. He looked the same but she couldn’t help but imagine a fragility to him that was strengthened by the slow, slightly pained smile that barely moved his lips.

“Hey, Kara.” Clark swallowed down a sip of cold water from the glass offered to him by Lois, soothing the scratch in his throat. He’d been forced within the confines of the healing chambers a couple of times over his career as Superman and he would never get used to how he felt when he woke up from it. “You can hug me if you want,” he offered. “I’m okay, just a bit woozy.”

“Woozy? That sounds bad! That’s bad isn’t it, Alex?”

Alex winced slightly, bearing the panicked pressure of Kara’s hands upon her shoulders and the was she shook her back and forth that prevented her from being able to form words.

“Kara,” Lois laughed, gently pulling Kara away from shaking Alex like a cocktail. “Look at me, Clark’s okay. Aren’t you, Smallville?”

“Just got the taste of that healing stuff in my throat and cotton wool in my head,” holding out a hand, he pulled Kara against him. “I’m okay.” He somehow managed to restrain a grunt as Kara promptly took him at his word and tightened her grip.

“Ease up there, Kara. Remember how you feel when you blow your powers?” Alex rolled her eyes at Kara’s pitiful whine and grumbling at that. Her sister hated to feel weak… to feel how she thought human’s must.

“Clark just needs some time in the sun to charge him up again and he’ll be as fit as a fiddle again… or as fit as a Kryptonian anyway,” Lois added reassuringly, smiling as she brushed a wayward curl of hair back off his forehead. She had seen her husband beaten down more often than she would like. It never got any easier but it had granted her the experience and knowledge to know the signs of his pain and the healing that came after.

“How- how long was I in there?” Clark finally rasped out once Kara had her fill and pulled back a little. Time lost all meaning when he was in that thing but however long it was, it was enough time that he could see deep lines and dark circles around Lois’ eyes and her mouth that hadn’t been there before. He wasn’t stupid, he didn’t want to have to spare more time healing so he didn’t point them out.

“It’s been two weeks, Smallville,” Lois finally told him after a glance around showed Kara and Alex’s reluctance to break it to him.

“Two- two weeks!?” Clark slumped back against the pillows in shock. Of all the times he had been felled by an enemy, that was the longest he had been put down and out of the sky. “I—”

“You nearly died,” Lois finished, knowing all too well what her husband was about to say just from that one word and the look on his face. “You didn’t though.”

“What happened after? Has she made any demands or done anything else?”

“Hold up there, Smallville!” Lois pushed him back easily, proving his weakness to himself and everyone there with a simple touch. “There’s been nothing since she flew away. We- we don’t even know why she attacked you in the first place. What happened anyway? One second we were on a date and then you were gone. Did she say anything?”

“No,” Clark sighed. Closing his eyes, he went back over everything that had happened that night, searching his memory for anything useful. “I just saw her flying straight up. I thought it might have been Kara at first from a distance. When I got close I thought she was going to go straight out of the atmosphere.” A glance around showed everyone's eyes growing wide in understanding. There weren’t too many beings that could stand such changes in pressure and lack of oxygen, not even a Kryptonian could for long and he had thought it was Kara. “I grabbed her from behind and she went wild.”

“I don’t think she was in control of herself. I followed,” she admitted as Clark looked at her quizzically. “I was careful!”

“I doubt that,” Clark smiled softly. “Careful is one thing you have never been, Lois Lane. I’ve loved that about you as much as it has scared me to death and driven me to distraction. What happened while you weren’t being careful?”

“I might have, kind of, thrown myself over you and begged her not to drop a building on your hard head.”

“Lois!”

“It worked!” she pointed out. “Ghost snapped out of whatever was fueling her rage, dropped the building well away from your head and flew away.”

“Ghost?”

“Lois named her,” Alex piped up.

“Couldn’t risk Perry picking anything or have Cat Grant popping up out of retirement to name her. Anyway, I picked your name, Smallville, never hear you moaning about that. And, from what I saw of her, Ghost kind of fit.”

“Or you were hoping it would bring her back to try and correct you. Which would be a waste of time. Two minutes after meeting you I knew there would be no point trying to change your mind from naming me, Superman. Which you _only_ picked because of the ‘S’,” he traced the ‘El’ symbol currently missing from over his chest.

“Cat was just as stubborn when I tried to get her off the ‘girl’ part. Kind of grew on me… in the end,” Kara shrugged her shoulders, a smile teasing her lips fondly as she thought about her ex-boss and mentor and her acerbic tongue. Kara often thought that it was being Cat Grant’s assistant that had given her a tougher skin that the yellow sun did.

“We’ve got everyone trying to work out where our new ‘friend’ might be hiding out but no luck yet—”

“Maybe some more eyes in the sky—” Clark grunted in protest as Lois pushed him back again and fixed him in place with a glare.

“When you are better. All you have to do right now is rest up. M’gann is on standby to act in your place if anything comes up and Flash and the others are helping out when they can too. Ghost is lying low though. Until they pop their head up there’s nothing even Brainy and your fancy-schmancy, Kryptonian computers can do.”

“Fine,” Clark grunted, “I’ll be a good patient.”

“That sounds as likely as Lois being careful,” Kara muttered under her breath as she followed Alex out of the room.

“Are you okay?”

“I’m glad he’s awake at last.”

“That wasn’t what I was asking, Kara.”

“I know.”

“We haven’t really had the time to talk since Clark was attacked,” not with how Kara kept flying off all the time. “There’s a new Kryptonian—”

“I haven’t had time to process it yet, Alex,” Kara interrupted sharply. “I _want_ to be happy. Any new Kryptonian should be a joy but— that didn’t exactly go well with the Worldkillers or Red Daughter any more than it did with Aunt Astra and the others on Fort Rozz. And—”

Kara broke off with a sigh. And she was still too much in mourning for Lena to process anything.

She felt sure she always would be.

“Don’t. Please.”

Kara looked blankly down at Alex’s hand upon her wrist, only realising she was already turned to leave as she did so.

“Stay with me a while,” Alex pleaded. “I miss you. Maybe a fresh set of eyes will pick up something Brainy and Nia have missed,” she wheedled as she saw Kara softening slightly.

“Okay. Just for a bit,” Kara relented, turning her feet in the direction of all the computers Brainy had set up showing satellite footage and news reports from around the world.

She could already see that there was nothing different, nothing new since the last time she had stood there and looked at Brainy’s array of maps.

They had to find her. It went beyond Clark being attacked. Kara just needed to know more about her. Where she was from? Where she had been? Did she remember Krypton? Even though Argo had miraculously survived the destruction of Krypton, there were times that Kara still felt alone.

The last daughter of Krypton.

Or was she?

Stepping closer, Kara ran her fingers over an image Nia had printed off of their one ‘sighting’ of Ghost since she had flown from Metropolis. Samples they had taken from the soil and the damaged crops had proven that the crop circle had been created by energy being drained in a way only a Kryptonian could. But, since then…

The Ghost was living up to their name.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sarah floated higher, using her x-ray vision to peer through the clouds brushing her feet and deep into the ground far below. The night protected and cloud cover help shield her from view but she wasn’t taking any chances that might draw the attention of the Supers. Even though they had been quiet as far as the news was concerned, every time she went out, she felt like she could feel them breathing down her neck.

“Focus!” she hissed to herself.

Carefully fishing her borrowed phone out of the pocket of her hoodie, she brought up the map she had saved and circled the area and filled in details she was picking up with her own eyes.

After nights of flying around, she was pretty sure she knew why there was no water around the farms. But, there was no evidence as yet to say why Morgan Edge would be behind it all beyond whispers from disgruntled farmers about to lose their livelihoods but, Sarah _knew_ he was. There was just no way to make him stop.

No legal ways.

The huge factory that was diverting water coming down from the mountains was all conveniently legal according to the laws of the State it was covered by.

Buying up the land, that was legal.

As was putting in proposals for that land to be strip-mined.

All legal.

Only…

There was nothing beneath the surface that was worth the cost and effort of mining it. Sarah could see that by looking at every bit of information she could find online or at the local library. By using her x-ray vision as a definitive test, she could see that there was nothing. The value in that land was in the soil. The crops it could grow and the grass the animals grazed upon.

Without the water, it was just empty square miles in the middle of nowhere.

Unless it wasn’t actually nowhere? What if there was significance in its location and that was where its worth lay?

Slowly drifting down through the clouds, unmindful of the fine layer of dampness clinging to her clothing, Sarah switched off the phone and zipped it securely back in her pocket. She looked around, making sure she was on track. Navigating from the air was still tricky and with her speed, just a couple of seconds could put her hundreds of miles away from where she’d meant to be. She’d found that out the hard way.

And satnav was no good at all when there were clouds to look at and not a turning in the road.

She wondered if it had been easier before she’d lost her memory? The Supers didn’t seem to have a problem. There were no photos of them fishing a map out from their boot or cape and looking lost and confused as far as she knew.

Chuckling at herself, Sarah took one last searching look around before alighting out of sight behind the barn. Todd and Copper bounded up from where they were lying on the porch and rushed to great her as enthusiastically as always. They soon ran out of steam and flopped back down to their blankets with jaw cracking yawns as she sat on the porch swing to watch the rest of the night pass whilst she mulled over what she had found.

Sarah found she still couldn’t sleep in the house. She just didn’t dare. There was too much waiting for her when she closed her eyes. Snippets of something good that were destroyed by a tidal wave of pain that was so real, so close, she could feel the echo of it in her bones even just sitting there and rubbed idly at one of the many small scars that marked her body where it lay hidden by her hair at the base of her skull.

The first rays of the sun inched over the roof of the barn and fell across her. The pure energy that flowed into her was more invigorating than downing ten shots of espresso back to back even after spending the whole night flying back and forth. From her research into the Supers’, she knew that they gained their powers from the yellow sun.

Did that make her a Kryptonian too? Was she missing a whole planet as well as her memories of who she was? Or… was she a weapon like the Worldkillers and the clone of Supergirl, Red Daughter?

With how she had attacked Superman, Sarah wasn’t going to rule that out which made her any more determined to avoid the Kryptonian heroes in case it set off some programming locked within her.

Maybe sensing the whirlpool of thoughts sucking her under, of just taking advantage of the situation, Todd flopped his head onto her lap with a hard done to sigh. Smiling at his antics, Sarah gave in to his demands and burrowed the tips of her fingers into the soft warmth behind the hound's ears and scratched until one of his back paws tapped and his thin tail thumped on the worn wooden boards of the porch and his pink tongue lolled out of the side of his gaping mouth as she hit the right spot.

The dawning sun awakened the birds and animals and soon enough started worked on Justin and Amy, brining them shuffling out of their beds ready to start their day trying to keep their farm afloat.

Sarah would have been happy to help out in the kitchen but her skills in that area of the kitchen had gone the way of her memories or had never been there at all. Coffee, she could do coffee. Anything more, even cereal, and she was more likely to burn the house down faster than she could light up her eyes. So, she did what was best and stayed out of the way while the couple worked their magic.

“Hmm, you’re up early again.”

“Had trouble sleeping with all your snoring,” she teased him.

Accepting the chipped mug of coffee out of his hand, Sarah shuffled over on the swing, making room for Justin to take a seat with her as he’d taken to doing every morning. He was a big man that took up space without even trying. But, there was a gentleness to him that Sarah found comforting.

“I don’t snore,” he huffed.

“Then you really should see about that buzzsaw you keep in your room.”

“Buzzsaw? That’s Amy,” he teased as he caught a glimpse of his wife behind them. He ducked, barely dodging the flick of a handtowel. Slipping from the swing, setting Sarah grumbling as she tried to keep her coffee in her mug, he swept Amy into his arms and dipped her low much to the delight of the dogs.

Amy considered herself beyond the age of giggling but, giggle like a schoolgirl was exactly what she did as Justin planted ridiculously loud, smoochy kisses all over her face.

Sarah hid her grin as the couple got it out of their system and Justin pulled Amy down onto his lap on the swing despite protests made weak from giggling.

“Damn fool of a man,” Amy huffed out, pushing wisps of hair back off her forehead. “Only came out to tell you breakfast is ready—” she let out a startled yelp and clutched at his shoulders as he suddenly surged to his feet with an eager grin and maybe even a bit of drool at the corner of his mouth as he licked his lips.

“Men are such idiots,” she shook her head as she sat down beside their new friend.

“That’s one way of putting it.” Sarah paused, the edge of the mug brushing her lips, a crease furrowing her brow. She could taste a bitterness on her tongue that wasn’t anything to do with the coffee.

“You remembered something?” Amy questioned with a tone that was deliberately light and conversational so as not to spook Sarah. Turning slightly, she studied her strong profile and the way her dark hair curled down, framing her face before spilling over her shoulders. It was a face that, once cleaned up, they could have sworn was familiar. It had taken them a good while and Sarah somehow managing to get their old computer working for them to realise who Sarah reminded them of.

Lena Luthor.

Everyone knew what had happened to the Luthors. Their father had died young, worked himself into an early grave to solidify the families wealth and position of power within the business world. The mother had busied herself in charitable deeds and fundraising while their son had taken over the business, building it from strength to strength before bringing the young daughter into the fold.

While Lena Luthor had remained largely hidden from sight, content to run things from the background even when she had brought CatCo Worldwide Media, Lex had been the media darling. Until he had gone mad and aligned himself first against with and Leviathan, an organisation made up of beings with godlike powers that had tried to kill everyone on Earth.

Lena had stood against them with the other superheroes. And then she had vanished out of the public eye for months only to be killed when her plane had exploded.

That had been three, nearly four years ago.

There was just no way that a woman like Lena Luthor, even as quiet in the public eye as she had been, could have been wandering around for four years and not been spotted.

They had pointed out the resemblance to Sarah. However, there was no mention of the name, Lena Luthor that got a reaction. She just looked at the pictures carefully, pointed out all the differences and went about her day playing with the dogs and fixing the farm vehicles.

“I remember just enough to know that men are the worst,” Sarah shrugged, swallowing a sip of coffee and the image of one good man; boyishly handsome and charming, with dark hair and eyes, a glowing, wheatish complexion, and a warm smile that beamed at her as they worked shoulder to shoulder.

When she thought about him she felt contented and a fondness that was something close to love. However, even that image held pain and regret locked within it that made her eyes sting even as the feeling lingered that she had done the right thing. Only, she just wasn’t sure what _that_ was.

What could she have done that brought up feelings of pain and rightness at the same time?

As she dumped him?

Had he dumped her?

Why did she see eyes of the purest blue glistening with unshed tears when she thought of the unnamed man with soft brown eyes?

“Hey. Sarah?”

“Hmm?” Sarah jerked in the seat, setting it swinging a bit faster in her startlement. She rubbed at the back of her neck, her fingers finding the raised edge of the scar there once more before dropping back to support the mug dangling perilously from her other hand.

“I’m no expert dear but, maybe you shouldn’t try and force the memories so hard, you know what Doc said?”

“Doc is an old quack who probably still thinks leeches are too modern and cutting edge. Your words, not mine.” He was also so blind and deaf that Sarah was sure he thought he’d been examining Amy, or probably someone far younger as he had given her a lurid green lollipop after. And when she’d had her eye on one of the red ones peeking out of his top pocket too.

“But, you could be right.” Sarah was inclined to agree simply because chasing down the memories seemed to trigger her powers towards something dangerous. Something deadly.

“Come in inside and have something to eat, dear,” patting her knee, Amy stood up and stared for a moment at Sarah’s downbent head. She looked so lost sitting there, her body tiny and almost childlike upon the seat that Justin had made with his frame in mind but the pale green eyes that looked back up to meet hers seconds later were clear and determined. “What are your plans for today?”

“Plans? I’m supposed to be getting that rusty heap Justin calls a tractor working,” Sarah grinned at Amy’s chuckle. It wasn’t that bad, not really. Rusty but serviceable. Old, not obsolete as Justin liked to point out. Sarah was doing the best she could seeing as she was going by instinct rather than actual engineering memories. Even she had her limits with what she could do though and she had reached an impasse with the stubborn tractor that only a new part could fix.

A part that _shouldn’t_ have needed replacing at all but, to Sarah’s untrained eyes, it looked like it had been deliberately damaged. And, she had a suspicion as to who might do it but, like everything else to do with Edge and their intentions, she couldn’t prove a thing.

“I’m thinking of having a look around the scrapyard next time you’re heading into town. Everything is probably picked clean but, worth a look, right?”

“We’re heading in later today. Genius in there forgot to pick up feed when he went yesterday. And you’re right, won’t hurt to try the scrapyard,” Amy nodded. She didn’t really hold out much hope but, with how expensive spare parts were in town, it was definitely worth a shot no matter how long it was.

“Come on you two! Food is gettin’ cold!”

“Men.”

Sarah couldn’t help but smile at the way Amy rolled her eyes so hard she almost tripped over her own feet as she bustled across the porch to the door. She loved the way they teased each other with love without a hint of malice in word or action.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sarah hopped down out of the truck as Justin pulled up at the rough piles of baked dirt and rough rocks that served as curbs outside of the scrap yard. It was so small that no one minded that it was only a couple of minutes walk away from what passed as the town centre.

From the look of it, what was there was just left to get picked clean for spares and the rest left to rust away rather than crushing for recycling. As for tractors and other farm vehicles… a quick glance around revealed nothing bigger than a pickup.

It was disappointing, but not unexpected. But, the pickup was also in need of a couple of parts replacing and Sarah didn’t stop looking for anything else useful for the bigger vehicles, even surreptitiously using her x-ray vision to peer beneath the many layers of metal while Justin caught up on the gossip with the scrap dealer.

Sarah paused, her ears honing in across the small yard as she heard the gossip switch, as expected, to what was happening to the good people trying desperately to hold on to their farms.

“It looks like the Hopkins place might be the next to go. Saw them come into town and head to the bank yesterday.”

“No!” Justin shook his head sadly at the thought of losing yet more of his friends and neighbours to Edge.

“Yup! Real shame. Good folks.”

“Real good,” Justin sighed deeply. “They’d just about managed to hold on and pull that place back from the brink two years ago after Hank’s cancer went into remission. He said the only reason he made it was fighting for their place and now—”

Sarah swallowed hard. She’d never met the Hopkins but Justin’s fondness and respect for them was clear in his voice. As was the concern that losing what he had fought for before, would kill him now.

This was a town of good people brought to the brink. People that bent over backwards to help each other but, they were all suffering equally and there was only so much they could do.

There _had_ to be something she could do!

“Any luck over there?”

“No, nothing!”

There _had_ to be something! What was the point of all her powers if she couldn’t do something to help!

The old paint can she was holding gave in her hand as easily as if it was made of aluminium foil, crumpling into a ball that she tossed aside, barely managing to keep her frustration in check enough to stop the metal ball from flying over the perimeter fence cobbled together from sheets of metal siding and chainlink that stood over fifty feet away.

The gossiping voices and everything else she was learning to distance herself from to avoid being overwhelmed faded away, leaving Sarah in an oasis of quiet filled with the rhythmic sound of her blood been pumped through her veins, her eyes fixed on a faded sign hanging crookedly on the building next to the junkyard.

“Bennets Auto Repairs?”

“That place used to belong to Justin’s uncle,” Amy filled in as she moved to stand at Sarah’s side ready to offer her support the moment she had seen her getting agitated. “He was the eldest. The farm was supposed to be his but there was a falling out between him and Justin’s pa on account of him not wanting anything to do with the farming. He signed the deeds to the farm over and set up the shop here. Justin was too young to remember much of what happened but the rift never got resolved in time.”

“The people that took over never changed the name?”

“No one ever took it over, dear. It went to Justin’s pa and now officially it belongs to Justin.”

“No ones stepped foot in there since uncle Terry died,” Justin stated quietly as he joined the two women, resting his hand on Amy’s shoulder to reassure her that he was okay with his past being talked about. “Turned out he had cancer. Didn’t bother to tell no one about it mind. The treatments weakened his heart and well, that went how it did. Pa didn’t want the place where his brother died but, he refused to let go of it. Not that anyone in the town wants it. They loved uncle Terry and just let it sit there as a reminder. Crying shame though.”

“Oh?”

“My vehicles aren’t the only ones suffering around here. What we need is a good mechanic in town, someone that wants to work with us poor farmers instead of that overpriced ripoff merchant we’ve got.”

Sarah shifted from foot to foot as Justin’s eyes became fixed on her, Being there was purely coincidental and yet, right then, she felt like she had been led into a carefully laid out trap.

“Get that look off your face, Justin Bennet! I only said I _thought_ I knew how to fix vehicles,” she pointed out, folding her arms resolutely.

“Just something to think about if you decide to stick around. If nothing else, there might even be some tools left in there that could help.”

“Tools?” Sarah’s fingers paused in the restless tapped against the crook of her folded arms. She couldn’t deny that tools would be a good thing to have. Justin had already nearly caught her unscrewing a wheel bolt by hand… luckily he hadn’t noticed that she was lifting the heavy machine by hand at the same time.

“Like I said, no one has stepped foot in there since he died.”

“Wouldn’t hurt to look. Tools would be handy,” Sarah admitted, ignoring the Cheshire cat grins spreading over the faces of Justin and the scrapyard owner. It felt like they had been talking about her in town and she wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

Keeping a low profile surely meant avoiding people? But, as long as she was careful and didn’t do anything someone might see as ‘Super’ in plain sight, she should be okay. Right?

~~~~~~~~~~

Opening up the old mechanics' shop for a look had taken far longer than Sarah felt sure it should have. A look around was all she had wanted but word had spread fast and had drawn everyone in town that day, and more besides, into visiting to add their pleas for it to be opened again.

Sarah had even seen the sour-faced man that ran the overpriced garage hanging around outside with his phone pressed to his ear. The sheer amount of people and the noise they created stopped Sarah from listening in, Which was a shame as the extra-sour expression on his face made her itch to know what that conversation was about.

By the time she had answered a few questions from eager locals, Sarah felt like she was buzzing with the possibilities before her, her mind ticking over with a vast array of facts and figures on how to bring _Bennets Auto Repairs_ back to life.

The only strange thing about it was how easy, how familiar, it felt for her mind to turn into a clinical business computer.

Clinically speaking, it was business suicide. She had nothing to sink into such a venture from money to knowledge beyond the ‘I think I can repair that’. But clinical didn’t take into account the people there that needed something like that and were willing to help each other as well as themselves.

Her okay had been seized upon and before Sarah could really take it in, she had agreed to help out the other struggling farmers around the town.

“You okay there?”

Sarah turned, dragging her eyes away from where they had been staring blankly through the side window to meet Amy’s amused gaze.

“I’m a mechanic. Don’t know what my name is but, I’m a mechanic.”

Amy’s laughter tinkled against her ear, a joyous sound that was broken off as the steering wheel suddenly jerked around in Justin’s hands.

Everything slowed.

The rush of sounds assaulting Sarah’s senses becoming individual notes she picked through almost at leisure.

The bang of all four tyres bursting almost as one.

The snap of bones in Justin’s wrist as the wheel spun and jerked wildly.

The squeal and slap of the damaged tyres mingling with Amy and Justin’s screams of fear and pain as the old truck rattled and bounced along the narrow stretch of road, kicking up dirt and gravel as it careered out of control towards a steep drop off and certain death beyond.

The truck teetered on the edge of the precipice, almost righting itself.

And then with a weak skittering of gravel, it fell.

Unbuckling her seatbelt, Sarah slid open the window at the back of the cab and flew out. The truck tumbled over and over, bouncing wildly against the steep banks and protruding rocks.

Clenching her fists, Sarah chased it.

There was no point trying to pull them out one by one as they were more likely to get caught on the edge and hurt worse and flying them to safety before getting the other could only be done at a speed that was not safe for a human. Instead, she moved with it, getting into position to grab the truck and bring it to a stop without ripping it apart or scrambling Amy and Justin.

And then she slowly, carefully, flew the truck back up to the safety of the road and placed it down before running around to open up the driver’s door.

“Are you okay?” Eyes made wide with shock and confusion met hers.

“I- I think I hurt my wrist?” He held his hand out to her, cradling it with his other hand. He felt small and weak like a child again, his knees shaking and buckling as he tried to climb out of the truck.

“Hey, take it easy,” Sarah encouraged as she steadied him. He was in shock, pain, and probably a little dizzy with the tumble the truck had taken but, she could see no other broken bones or signs of trauma.

“Stay put. Let me just go check on Amy.”

“I’m okay dear, thanks to you.”

“What happened?”

“Some asshole tried to kill us, Justin.”

Sarah wished she could disagree with that statement, mainly because the couple was too nice and didn’t deserve to have someone after them but, they were on a stretch of road that remained largely unused except by visitors to the farm. Also, there was the damming evidence of the spike strip tangled around the back wheels and axel of the truck.

Someone was going to pay for that!

“I kinda got that part. Wondering more how we got back up here when I remember us tippin’ over the edge.”

“Keep up, Justin! Sarah caught us and flew us back up.”

“Oh. I guess that would explain the handprints embedded into the truck there. And that,” he added, his mouth dropping open as Sarah used an insane amount of strength to pick up the truck and beams of purple shooting from her eyes to remove the spike strip wrapped around the bottom of the truck. “Hey, Sarah! You any good at panel beating too?”

“I guess we’ll find out soon enough,” Sarah smiled, shaking her head at their easy acceptance of what she had done. Of course, it as probably the concussion that was helping with that but, they were alive, albeit a little bit shaken-not-stirred, and she would take the outing of her powers and face the consequences so long as they stayed that way over the alternative.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN - I'm shaken by the Supergirl news as I'm sure we all are. I still don't know what to think. I don't know if the decision was CW's the showrunners or maybe even Mel's so she could be there more for her baby... I just wish the show could have lived up to the potential we saw in it. The potential that has 30432 stories under the Supergirl tag (13530 of them Kara/Lena). While it was on the air there was always the hope that they would turn it around and content from the amazing cast (that definitely doesn't include DH) to keep us going.
> 
> The Supercorp fandom will live on though, we'll give them the stories they deserved.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN - After I posted this I edited the prologue to smooth out some of the characters and details if you want to give it another read. Now, instead of Kara and the others coming off so aggressive, most of the interaction at the airport is from Lena's POV and she is not in a good place mentally (they all need therapy) and Kara doesn't get the chance to explain properly.
> 
> Other chapters will be getting a polish too but it is gone midnight here and I've got to sleep :)

Using the darkness of night as her cover, Sarah kept an eye on the guards that were patrolling the perimeter fence and moving between the heavy machinery and numerous squat trailers that made up the offices and storage areas. She flew quickly down and landed in a crouch, her feet hovering millimetres above the roof of the main trailer.

The guards continued on their way, oblivious to her intrusion into their routine as the beams of their torches sweeping back and forth, piercing the night as they searched outside of the razor wire protected fences.

Sarah checked the black ski mask she was wearing once more and tugged her hoodie up to shade her face further. Mere bullets couldn’t hurt her but, she didn’t want her pale skin to light up like the fourth of July under a stray beam of light and give her away before she’d had the chance to look for clues.

Floating down, she quickly put the lock picking skills she had learned from searching the dark side of the internet otherwise known as YouTube, to good use. Forcing the lock or a quick blast with her eyes would have been infinitely quicker but the extra time to make it look like a normal break-in and not some rogue Kryptonian was worth all three of the seconds it took.

Not bad for her first try under pressure even if she did say so herself!

With one last check to make sure the guards hadn’t heard or deviated from their routine, Sarah slipped into the trailer and closed and locked the door behind her.

The area around the site was lit with security lights. Poorly lit as most of them focused outwards, but still lit. Inside the trailer though, it was blacker than the night itself thanks in part to the poor lighting and blinds that had been drawn during the day to block out the sun and left down. It made no difference to Sarah though as her eyes were more than up to the task.

The interior was messy and nondescript, looking like many other offices and construction sites anywhere in the world even though she couldn’t remember being in any of them. Sarah didn’t let the blueprints and dirty coffee mugs that were littering every available surface fool her though. She went straight for her x-ray vision, finding in one sweep the high-powered weapons, an illegally owned alien detector, and boxes of image inducers hidden behind a wall panel as well as a lead-lined, biometric safe hidden in, of all places, the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet.

The weapons she left. She had no need of them and tampering with them so they would never fire again, no matter how tempting, would only give away that someone had been in there. She picked up the alien detector, the clunkily designed, palm-sized device with the gold, Luthor Corp logo embossed into the black plastic cradled in her palm.

Aliens had rights just as anyone else on Earth. Just the fact that there was an alien detector there was against the law as they were, by law, only allowed for use in the medical profession so that Doctors would know if a patient was an alien and might need different care from a human if they came in unconcsious. Any other use could only be for the purposes of discrimination.

Especially with the older models such as the one in her hand. Instead of giving details that would help, it was designed to give a rudimentary answer; human or alien?

She hesitated for a moment, pressing her thumb cautiously to the worn pad and waited as seconds ticked by as the device tested her skin. Eventually, a light came on. Not unexpectedly it was red.

Alien.

Shielding her eyes from the windows, she gave a carefully controlled blast of heat vision to the device and checked again. The light blinked. Green.

Grinning, Sarah put the carefully broken device back.

The filing cabinet she rifled through, looking through all the surface layers of paperwork and committing them to a memory she had found liked to hold on to every fact and figure placed before it even though her past was a mystery to her.

The surface looked as clean as everything else she had found on Edge’s work there. Just a company comprised of two players; Morgan Edge and Maxwell Lord using the banner name of Edge. It seemed unusual for one partner to keep their name out of the public eye like that. Especially when such big egos were involved. Lawyers, in particular, were notorious for creating firms with so many names they were impossible to remember and could take up several business cards.

Maybe, Sarah thought, a smirk teasing her lips, a cooler head had pointed out that _Lord Edge_ sounded like they were plotting world domination.

No matter how many names were on the letterhead, on the surface, they were just looking to make a profit by legal means by buying land that was unworkable. It was below the surface that Sarah dipped then. Lifting the heavy safe from the drawer, she pried the back carefully off the safe to avoid messing with the biometric locks. She flicked through ledgers and files held within. All of which were still relatively clean to anyone looking.

To anyone that that didn’t know the signs of shady dealings like she could that was.

There was more going on, that was clear to see but Sarah felt like she was looking at two jigsaw pieces she’d managed to put together out of a thousand and she had no picture to go on.

She paused, looking through the sides of the trailer as footsteps drew near and finally passed by without pause as the guards shuffled through their patrol with tired yawns and an air of boredom in every step.

Drawing the last item out of the safe, a simple A5 sized notebook that could be brought online or from just about every shop that sold stationery, she flicked through several pages of names and followed the key handily added to the bottom of each page that denoted each person’s job and how they were linked to the site.

All apart from one name that stood out like a sore thumb because it was missing the key and because of all of them, Sarah knew them.

The owner of the mechanic shop.

The shop that was charging desperate people over the odds.

The same man that Sarah had last seen talking heatedly on his phone before they were forced off the road!

Anger burned through her, lighting the trailer with a purple fury that leaking out of her eyes uncontrolled. Even with them shut, she could see it bright against her eyelids and ached to just let it loose and burn the whole place down!

“What was that?”

“Probably just lightning over yonder. You know how this place gets with the storms.”

Sarah didn’t wait around to see if the explanation was enough to appease them, she quickly put the safe and its contents back together, sealing the back into place with a brush of her thumb, and put it in the cabinet. She paused for a second and spun around, quickly helped herself to a couple of the small boxes containing the Luthor Corp image inducers.

The sight of the name angered her on a deeper, darker level than the one she had seen on the paper and before she even realised what she was doing, she’d scratched out most of the name on the boxes, leaving behind a lone L and a long space before the Corp.

Seconds later, she left the way she had entered. Circumventing the still patrolling guards, she darted between the heavy machinery. From what she had garnered from the actual files, they were there for show and wouldn’t be moving any time soon so, she helped herself to some of the parts she knew she needed to repair Justin and Amy’s vehicles.

For everything else she needed, she would need to go further afield.

~~~~~~~~~~

“You better take care of yourself.”

Kara pictured Clark carefully tapping away at his phone as the three dots blinked away for what felt like forever until his reply finally popped up.

“Don’t worry, Lois and the boys are keeping such a close eye on me.”

More dots appeared, the follow-up message coming much quicker as though he had used super-speed to type it before he was found out. A thought that was all but confirmed by the message that came across her screen seconds later along with a pouting emoji.

“I couldn’t get out even if I wanted.”

Their conversation continued a while longer, idle chatter to pass the time and keep Clark away from thoughts of heading back into the skies above Metropolis. Time in the sun had done its work in bringing him back to his powers but, while Clark felt he was ready for the kind of action that went with the cape, Lois didn’t and there was no one on any planet Kara knew that was stupid enough to go against what Lois Lane wanted.

After Clark had left, under orders from Lois, Kara quickly turned off the screen of her phone and put it aside before her fingers could scroll through her carefully stored messages to find the ones with Lena that would take her on a journey full of pain and regret.

It had taken her a year followed by months of sessions with Kelly to break the almost nightly routine of trying to call Lena and her fingers still itched to bring her up on her contacts and press the call button even though she knew there would only be silence as Sam had arranged for the number to be permanently retired so it wouldn’t go back into circulation.

Sighing, Kara spun her chair around to face the window, putting her back firmly away from the lure of her phone.

Although years had passed since its destruction, it still felt strange to Kara to look out of her window at CatCo and see the empty space on the skyline where the DEO building had stood. As, in that version of Earth, the DEO had belonged to the Luthor family, Lex’s turn, or return, to evil had made everyone that could have, recoil from the idea of rebuilding it or any other form of the DEO.

Kara wondered sometimes if she should miss it more but, the truth was that the DEO was a terrible organisation even on Earth-38. It had just been there at the very start of her career as Supergirl, Kara hadn’t known that she had a choice. The Earth-Prime version had been worse with Lex’s mind guiding how the remnants of the Multiverse had come together to create the new reality they lived in with him as a figurehead of everything ‘good’.

No, the building and the organisation were things best left in the past and thanks to Lena’s Will, once the rubble had been removed, the footprint of the building had become an eco-friendly park with an underground area set aside for safe space for the alien and human homeless and LGBT+ communities of National City to get help. Nobody except Kara knew where the money for that or for any of the other charities Lena had quietly supported had come from.

Kara knew why that was, Lena had never liked the fanfare and had admitted once that she didn’t want anyone to think she was trying to buy absolution for Luthor deeds. It didn’t stop Kara from thinking that people should know just how good and beautiful a soul Lena had and she’d had to bite her tongue and almost shattered her teeth more than once to respect Lena’s wishes.

Sighing, she placed a hand upon the cool glass, her eyes finding the towering building that once more displayed the stylised L for L-Corp instead of Luthor Corp. The two women she could see moving around behind the drawn blinds of the office at the top of the building had seen to that.

Sam and Jess. L-Corps new CEO and CFO.

It was good to have Sam and Ruby back in National City. Or, it should have been. Sam had blamed them all for Lena’s death. Which was more than fair as far as Kara was concerned as she still blamed herself. It had taken Ruby to bring them to something of an understanding again as she’d informed them all in no uncertain terms that she wasn’t about to lose any more or her cool aunts.

The familiar sharp, staccato click of expensive heels crossing the floor drew Kara’s attention, pulling her away from her melancholy thoughts but not quickly enough as they came to a halt before her desk before she could put owner and voice together.

“Daydreaming again, Keira?”

“Ms- Ms Grant!?”

Kara nearly tripped over herself as she jumped to her feet. The sight of a Cat Grant standing before her, a hand resting on a hip that was cocked just so, her lips twitching in that way that said she knew something Kara never would, transported her right back to her first day as Cat’s assistant.

“Close your mouth Keira, you look like a goldfish. My office, two minutes.”

“Your- your office?” Kara somehow squeaked out as the blonde turned and started to walk away.

“Did I stutter, Keira? One minute and forty seconds. Chop chop! That goes for Ms Nal too if you can find which corner that girl is taking a nap in!”

Kara sat down heavily, almost popping the wheels off her chair as she watched Cat Grant in all her regal glory, turning heads and causing instant panic as only she could as she crossed the room and pushed open the door to Andrea Rojas’ office without knocking first.

Nia cautiously sidled up to Kara, a half-eaten pastry dangling forgotten between her fingers, the biggest sized coffee Noonan’s was willing to sell without a prescription clutched in her other hand. “Was that—?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. And I’m not dreaming?” she checked, gazing at a very distracted Kara over the rim of her coffee.

“If you’re dreaming, I am too but, if you want, I can give you a pinch?” Kara offered, snatching the remains of Nia’s pastry out of her hand without taking her eyes off the door Cat had gone through.

“You pinch too hard. Any idea why she’s here?”

“We’re about to find out, she wants us both in there in… twenty seconds!” Kara squeaked out as she checked her watch.

“You could have mentioned that first!” Nia yelped out, almost spinning in a circle in her haste to straighten her clothing and hair for their summons.

It never did to keep Cat waiting but Kara pulled Nia up before they got to the door. “Anything new with, you know?”

“Now? Really? And, no. I caught Brainy grumbling about it again. He hates that his memory goes glitchy about things like this. Things he knows- knew from the future just disappear on him so he’s not sure if he doesn’t know anything about Ghost because they were never seen again or if it’s a time-related glitch and they are important to the future.”

“If you two are done gossiping out there, feel free to come in and join us!”

Kara startled and shared a guilty look with Nia. They had both worked for the same woman at different times and it was obvious that she had the same effect on both of them… that caught with their hands in the cookie jar feeling that only a parent could evoke.

Channelling the bravery she felt when she donned the cape, Kara tentatively pushed open the door and stepped inside to face whatever was awaiting them.

Until that moment, Kara would have said it was Andrea’s office. It had certainly never been James’ even when he was in charge but Andrea had been able to give off the presence of a leader even though she had no idea how to run a media company as anything other than free advertising.

Then though… the décor was the same and Andrea was there looking as commanding as ever but she was not in charge. That role belonged to Cat Grant who was sitting in Andrea’s chair behind the desk Kara was willing to bet had cost more than six months of her wages.

“Sit down! That’ll be all Andrea, I’ll let you get back to your work downstairs,” Cat waved a hand dismissively.

“Are we still on for supper later?”

“Usual time.”

“Cat… Ms Grant… what’s going on?”

“I would love to be all dramatic and say it was a takeover but, the truth is that since Leviathan, Andrea has been looking to sell CatCo and get back to focussing on Obsidian North.”

“You, brought it back?”

“I wasn’t going to. Andrea is an amazing CEO in her own right, good enough to admit that she stepped out of her comfort zone and made a mess of this place. Damn near destroyed its reputation and my good name with it thanks to Lex Luthor. Luckily for Andrea, I was feeling in need of a challenge and, from what I could stomach to read of previous issues, you two,” she pointed sharply at Kara and Nia, delighting at the way they shrank from her ire, “are both in need of my guidance. Are you even working for CatCo? Since Andrea took over neither of your names have been attached to a story worth a damn!”

“I—”

“I know things have been… difficult lately,” Cat silenced Kara with a soft tone. “Both of you have _unique_ situations to deal with,” she gave them both a look that dared them to deny what she knew to be true. “But, I expect better from my top reporters than the half-hearted drivel you’ve been handing in. The Luthors might be gone but there are other players poised to take their place and there are other stories waiting to be written… that bizarrely named Ghost for one,” Cat pouted, trying to downplay her displeasure at not being the one to name them.

“Other players, Ms Grant?”

“I’m not going to do the investigation for you, Keira. Might I suggest though that you get your caped friend to check up on a few names missing from National City that she has dealt with in the past?”

Kara could tell that Cat wanted to say more but was unusually reticent to do so.

“Now, I want you two to both come up with something worthwhile for tomorrow’s pitch meeting. Something worthy of headlining the magazine when it goes back into print next month. Go… Now!” she clapped her hands together, making them jump out of their seats. “And on your way out, see if you can find that British fellow and send him in.”

“William Dey?”

“Yes, yes,” Cat wafted a hand around dismissively. Some people, like Kara, were worth knowing the names of simply so she could test their patience by getting it wrong at every opportunity. Others, like this man, weren’t even worth that. He might have won awards for his reporting in the UK but, what he had put out since he had joined CatCo was subpar at best. The only time it wasn’t, Cat could see Kara’s hand in it even if he had never bothered to put her name to it and that was the kind of behaviour that Cat wouldn’t put up with.

She was harsh but fair and had always believed in bringing people up with her and elevating them.

“Off you go, chop-chop!”

Kara followed in Nia’s wake as they hustled for the door but, as Nia rushed on, Kara paused, her hand resting on the edge of the door. She turned around, studying Cat’s bent head for a moment.

“It’s good to have you back Ms Grant.”

“It’s good to be back… Kara.”

The smile that broke across Kara’s face was beautiful and blinding, flooding Cat’s office with a passion and warmth that had been missing from every picture Cat had seen of the Girl of Steel for too long. She wanted to say more, offer more guidance and push the hero in the direction she needed to go but… if she was correct, the people... the players now eating at the table once occupied by the Luthors, Lex and Lillian anyway, that poor Lena had deserved better than anything the Luthor name had to offer. Edge and Lord though, they were dangerous when acting alone, together, they were sure to be worse. They were slippery and paranoid, and well versed in using tech to their advantage.

It had taken years for Maxwell Lord to start to show his hand again after crossing swords with Supergirl whereas Morgan Edge was more brazen and stupid, seemingly eager to try his luck again now that Lena was gone. With Lord backing him though, they were cautious and one wrong word could give everything away and send the two snakes into hiding again.

What they were up to was unknown, hidden so deeply that not even the shadiest of Cat’s informants in Washington could do more than just link their names together. Cat knew they were up to something though, she could feel it churning her insides like worse than the bad yaks' milk she had inadvertently drunk when she had left CatCo to find herself.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Are you sure all this is right?” Justin wafted the manila folder Sarah had handed him to read the night before around. He winced slightly as the move jostled his cast heavy wrist around.

“Mhm. Knowing isn’t the same as proving through,” Sarah answered from where she was floating upside down, her head and shoulders deep within the engine bay of the combine she was replacing some suspiciously damaged wiring on.

“I know he was robbing us blind with his prices but, he tried to kill us?”

“Like I said… Gotcha!” she grinned in triumph as her fingers finally snagged the right wire. “As I was saying… Knowing isn’t the same as proving. What I saw just said he was on Edge’s payroll. The rest,” fixing the replacement wire, Sarah floated back out of the engine and settled her feet back on the ground at Justin’s side. “I know what I saw, Justin. I just can’t prove a damn thing… Yet.”

“Yet?” he fixed her with a sternly raised eyebrow but she knew him too well already and, truth be told, she could punt him clean over the mountain if she wanted to and they both knew it.

“I’m not going to do anything too risky—”

“You better not! There will be all kinds of hell to pay from Amy if you did. And, you still haven’t fixed all the tractors and whatnot, yet.”

“Definitely can’t leave that unfinished.” Wiping her oily hands off on a rag, Sarah tossed it at his head with a laugh that faded slightly as she leaned back against the combine with him and looked out across the land.

“I will take care, Justin. But.”

“But?”

“I can’t sit back and do nothing. There are too many good people with their livelihoods at stake here. And, if I’m right, they’re willing to commit murder just because of the garage reopening? Whatever is happening, they want it done no matter what the cost.”

Sarah rubbed at her temple, the nagging feeling that she _knew_ people like that felt like it was burning a hole in her mind with a laser beam as red as the run.

“If I can’t talk you out of it… what’s your plan?”

_Wear a wire… bring him down before he destroys us all!_

_Checkmate!_

Sarah shook her head, releasing herself of the thoughts.

“Make him talk,” she answered as though it was the most simple thing in the world.

“Make? What do you mean make!?” Justin shouted into the void of Sarah’s blurry outline left as she sped away faster than he could ever hope to keep up with. He damn near jumped out of his boots and cast as she reappeared a moment later bearing two lunchboxes, one of which that she held out towards him.

“I heard Amy finishing packing up lunch,” she explained with a shrug as Justin grumbled lightly and took the offered box. Along with her powers came great responsibility and ravenous hunger that salads just couldn’t satiate. Luckily, some of the highest calorie foods, if worst nutritionally were cheap, so Sarah didn’t feel like she was eating the couple out of house and home.

The couple never made a comment no matter how much she ate but that was probably due to _how_ she ate shocking them more. Personally, Sarah could see _nothing_ wrong with eating pizza with a knife and fork or pinching off bits of doughnuts instead of biting into them.

“One of these days I will get you to just bite into one of those,” Justin grumbled around his much smaller, healthier, hoagie as Sarah delicately cut, actually hand to god, _cut_ off a bite-sized piece of her triple-stacked cheeseburger dripping with grease.

“Not today,” Sarah grinned, popping the bite into her mouth and picking up a napkin ready to wipe her mouth once she was finished chewing. The motions felt so familiar to her, ingrained by years of harsh words and looks if she strayed and yet. There was a disconnect, the feeling or buried memory struggling to surface, that she had once born witness to someone else eating through impossible amounts of food while she had watched.

_Golden blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes alight with humour that twinkled like the sun-kissed oceans she had seen._

A distant sound caught Sarah’s ear. She tracked it in an instant, whipping around to pinpoint the distant flash of blue and red on the horizon. She pressed back against the combine, nearly tipping it off its wheels as she using the big machine to hide her from view.

“Hmm, don’t often see the capes this way,” Justin muttered around his mouthful. “Hope that doesn’t mean another end of the world thing going on. Easy,” he whispered soothingly as Sarah shuffled nervously like she was about to take flight. “She’s too far north to be coming here,” he pointed out as the flash of colour passed behind the mountain peaks and continued on its way without pause.

Once Supergirl was out of sight, he turned his attention fully on Sarah and gently pulled her stiff body into a tender hug, giving her every chance to pull away if she wanted to. Since she had saved them and revealed what she could do, she had told them everything, which was admittedly not much more than she’d said before as she didn’t remember a lick of anything to do with her past. However, she admitted that she was the one that had beaten the hell out of Superman but she didn’t know why she’d done it.

“You listen to me. Whatever happened to you before, you didn’t kill Superman. We all saw the footage. Grainy as hell but, you had every chance to end him and you didn’t. So ya see, there’s no reason to turn tail and run from them.”

He could feel her relaxing slightly as she started to listen to his words and trust in them instead of whatever was going on in her mind.

“Hell, you don’t even look like you did then,” he smiled as she peeked up at him from features so far removed from the nightmarish visage they had witnessed beating the tar out of the Man of Steel. “So, even if she was out looking for you, all she would find is the young woman that saved our lives.” He gently tugged on a loose curl of her dark hair.

“If that doesn’t convince you. If anyone does come after you, Supers included, they will have to get through a whole town of stubborn, salt of the earth, jackasses like myself to get near you. So, don’t you be worrying none.”

“I can’t help it, Justin. Don’t you understand? I don’t know what else I did before that. I get flashes of such terrible things sometimes and it terrifies me!”

“The past is the past, girl. What matters is what you do from now on.”

“Pretty sure that’s not how the law would see it,” she smiled wryly.

“Yeah, well. The law can kiss my hairy ass.”

“Eww.”

“Oh, hush. The point is, I like to think we’re pretty good judges of character and we trust you else I wouldn’t have invited you back here no matter how good you are with this lot,” he prodded at the huge wheel nearest to him with his toe. “Speaking of though, any chance this thing is going to be running in time for the harvest?”

“Give it a try. No driving though!” She warned as he hoisted his frame up into the cab with an inordinate amount of grunting and groaning that only ended as he pressed down on the starter and the huge engine whirled and roared to life. “Amy will skin me alive if you hurt yourself doing, and I quote, dumb shit!”

~~~~~~~~~~

A warm breeze stirred around Kara, ruffling her cape only slightly around her body as she hovered high above the field damaged by Ghost. Already the ground was showing signs of recovery but the farmers had worked around the area, giving it a wide birth as though afraid disturbing it would cause it to spread to the rest of their land.

It was an irrational fear that served Kara well though as it meant that, weeks after the fact, she was able to get a look at it with her own eyes. She didn’t expect to find anything new, Brainy and the others had been thorough, and there were no Kryptonian powers that helped with things like that. Nothing that had kicked in yet anyway.

Sometimes though, it just helped to get a feel of a problem to see it in person and not looking at it through photographs.

As in, from where she was floating, she could see the whole pattern clearly from all angles whereas Brainy had just taken the one shot and focussed on everything from up close like he was using the camera lens like a microscope.

From above, Kara could see that the shape was regular in its irregularity like a footprint in the snow. Or, more accurately, like a snow angel.

One of the ideas tossed around while they were waiting for Clark to wake up, was that Ghost had deliberately drained the energy from the soil and plants simply because they could. However, Kara had never really believed that, she didn’t think any of them truly had but with little to go on it was something suggested that had to be thought about. As she alighted in the middle of the drained plants and lay down upon the earth, Kara was sure more than ever, that it was done by instinct just as when she had pulled in energy the same way, after Red Daughter had beaten her down and left her on the very edge of death.

There were times she could still hear the tear-filled echo of Alex begging her to take the grass.

Burying her fingers in the warm, dusty soil, Kara wondered how long Ghost had lain there alone and vulnerable, unable to move while her body made what was essentially a last ditched attempt to save her?

Where had she gone afterwards?

The world had been hers to explore, to hide in, and Brainy had finally hacked deep enough to pick up reports from governments all around the world of planes and missiles been deployed and trained upon an unknown force in their airspace.

He was still piecing them together but, even Brainy at his most sceptical had said that he was ninety-five point seven percent positive that Ghost had not landed in hostile territory and was therefore not another Red Daughter situation.

Which was comforting even if Ghost had shown signs of the purple energy that Kara associated with her Harun-el strengthened clone.

“Where are you?”

Kara had always wondered what could have been if Red Daughter had landed somewhere else or if she had been able to just talk to her. Even with limited contact between them and punches thrown, her clone had seen the truth and sacrificed herself in the end.

She still got hints of her running through her dreams some nights that left her waking with a craving for food she’d never had and an ache in her heart for a young boy she had saved and lost. While the dreams never accused her of anything, Kara still felt like she had failed her.

It was a failure she didn’t want to repeat with Ghost.

She just needed to find her.

Sighing, Kara floated back upright and brushed herself free of dirt. That was one mystery to be solved, another was why Cat was pushing her and Nia to investigate Maxwell Lord and Morgan Edge.

Her teeth clenched at the thought of the two men that had caused her so much trouble.

Lord, she had not thought of in years. In fact, there was a dark part of her still seething in the glow of the red Kryptonite he had poisoned her with, that had hoped he had been buried somewhere under the rubble of the DEO. Unfortunately, he was one of many prisoners that Lex Luthor had released when he had reshaped the Earth.

And then there was Edge with his personal vendetta against Lena. That almost made Kara wish she could get her hands on him while infected by Red-K.

“Supergirl, our system shows you as having stopped, is there a problem you need help with?”

“No, Brainy. Just taking a look around,” Kara quickly assured him. Since the loss of the DEO and his near death. The Coluan had been tripping over himself trying to make amends ever since long past the point it was needed. It made him sometimes rush to check on them to the point that Kara wondered if he ever slept or just spent all his time checking on where they were.

Actually, knowing Brainy, Kara made a mental note to check with Nia that he wasn’t doing exactly that.

First, though, she had a couple of sites on the East coast to check where Lord and Edge were working together. Then, if she had time, she could sweep up the coast and visit Clark and then visit Ryan and see how things were in Gotham before heading home to get the pizzas for sister (and her fiancée) movie night.

Bending her knees, she pushed up for the sky, leaving behind small, rippling boot sized divots in the dry soil and a cloud of dust swirling in the air.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sarah gave the image inducer she had altered one last check, making sure that the remote controls built into her gloves worked. It was all Justin’s idea, not that he was aware of it.

The fact that how she looked had changed, had stuck with Sarah.

How she looked now made her safe. The Supers and everyone else that was looking for Ghost were looking for the nightmarish visage that Lois Lane had named given the name to. Ghost was feared. Sarah just looked like a normal human. And while her jawline and eyebrows were a fierce combination, she didn’t think it would help much against someone that was willing to kill just because a rival mechanics _might_ have been opening, not even if she put on a pair of glasses and pulled her hair back in a ponytail.

What they needed, was Ghost.

Their mechanic friend hadn’t been in town since before anyone knew of the ‘accident’. He must have left as soon as his call had ended to set up the spike strip but, he had been kind, or stupid, enough to leave a note in the window saying he was visiting friends in the city nearly two hundred miles away as his alibi. Which had turned out for the best as Sarah was able to put some distance between Ghost and the town.

Tracking him down was ridiculously easy even in a city that size and it wasn’t long before Sarah was following him, flying through the darkness across the rooftops, her senses fixed on his every move, taking in everything.

A thick wad of money was slipped into his hands in passing by a man in a smart suit, only for it to be whittled quickly down as he visited seedy bars and strip joints, underground gambling joints and snorted and shot the rest into his veins.

Sarah felt sick with every new revelation of the man’s true personality. With so many vices it was no wonder he found the thought nothing of trying to commit murder.

Walking the edge of a building, she matched him step for step where he walked through the poorly lit streets below. The sickness swirled and grew at the way he was looking at a woman ahead of him. His tongue darted out, swiping wetly at his lips in a sound that echoed around her head.

A glance around and he acted, striking out quickly despite the drugs and booze he’d taken, he grabbed the young woman from behind. Clamping his hand over her mouth, he pulled her into a dark alley and pushed her against a dumpster, her head striking the metal causing a hollow clang to sound in Sarah’s ears like a bell.

Sarah shook the noise out of her head. In the split second that took, it was enough time for him to jump on the woman to pin her down while he worked to unfasten his pants.

She gave him no more time than that.

Swooping down, her speed cracking windows, she grabbed him by the collar and tossed him further down the alley. He lay there, spluttering and coughing in the filthy water pooled there, his bloodshot eyes wide with shock and anger as she stalked towards him.

A quick press of the button in her glove shifted the black, fitted mask hidden in the shadows of her hoodie and the anger became fear as Ghost stared back at him pale and terrifying.

He screamed pitifully as she grabbed him by the front of his jacket and lifted him off his feet. Dangling him by one hand, she drifted higher and higher, letting him feel the weight of gravity pulling at his feet, letting him see just how high he was.

“I should let you fall just for what you just did,” Sarah growled out. Thanks to the voice modulator, she was wearing, her voice sounding something like gravel and grave dirt had mated with a snake in a hurricane according to Amy when she had tried it out. Which sounded creepy and it seemed to work well as he went several shades paler than white and pissed his pants.

“What is Edge up to? I know you’re not just a mechanic,” she interrupted as he started to stutter out his lies. “I saw your name all over their paperwork. I know what you did.”

“They’re dead—?”

His voice choked off, his eyes widening as he realised what he had admitted.

“What is Edge doing? What does he want with the town?” Sarah shook him, making his legs swing until he looked down and was reminded how far up they were. “Last chance.”

“They’ll kill me!”

“You saw what I did to Superman. I could pull you apart piece by piece. Snap every bone in your body. Maybe I’ll burn holes through you until you talk or freeze bits and shatter them before your eyes. I could do that and so much more.”

“I don’t know what he’s doing?!” he screamed into the night. “I just get paid extra to sabotage stuff for them and make things difficult for the farmers,” he whined hoping what he was saying would be enough. “Listen, all I’ve heard is that it is more than just there, Edge and Lord, they’re doing the same in other places all over. Buying up land and stripping it down. Going deep.”

“Going deep?”

“That’s what I heard. Now put me down you crazy bitch!”

“Okay.”

Sarah opened her fist and watched as his body plummeted several floors before flying down and catching him by the ankle, a matter of inches from meeting the unyielding concrete face first.

Like a dog playing with a toy, she tossed him up and grabbed him by the front of the jacket again. “Now. You are going to hand yourself into the nearest police officer you find for what you tried to do to this young lady,” she hissed into his face, letting her eyes glow for good measure. “If you don’t, I will know and what I do to you will leave nothing for anyone to find.”

Dropping him to the ground, she watched as he scurried away, slipping and sliding in his haste. Switching off the voice modulator and the image inducer, she held out her hands to show she meant no harm and slowly approached the woman still pressed against the dumpster. Her mask still covered her identity but was a definite improvement on what the image inducer showed.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” The woman stopped shrinking away at her voice and Sarah took advantage of her stillness to check for injuries with her x-ray vision. “Is it okay if I touch you to help you up?”

“Yes,” she clutched the back of her head, wincing at the tenderness caused by her nod. “Ow!”

“Careful. I can’t see anything badly damaged, no fractures or anything. You’re going to be aching from that though. I’m sorry I didn’t stop him in time.”

“You did stop him though. I don’t know what would have happened if—” she broke off with a sob as what had happened and what might have happened crashed down around her.

“You’re safe now,” Sarah murmured gently as the woman collapsed against her, her fingers grasping at the fabric of her hoodie. “The police will be here soon, I can hear them coming but I’ll stick around a bit longer until I’m sure.”

As a police car pulled up at the entrance to the alley, its emergency lights filling the darkness with harsh flashes of red and blue, Sarah stepped back from the woman. A hand touched her arm, drawing her up short as it moved to her face and then lips pressed against her cheek through the fabric of her mask.

The woman’s quiet “thanks” was almost drowned out by the harsh shouts of the cops screaming at her to “put your hands” up as she turned and, with a flick of a button, gave them a glimpse of Ghost that had them tripping over their own feet.

Sarah ignored them and shot up into the night, leaving them staring up as she vanished from sight and hovered there, her hand covering her cheek where the woman had kissed her in thanks until she was sure they would do their duty and help her.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Did you find what you needed?”

Sarah peeled off her mask and hoodie and sat down on the couch next to Amy who had obviously stayed up to make sure she got home. The little-used TV played silently in the background, casting the homely room in a myriad of colours.

“Confirmation of what I already knew. I think I’m going to have to go further afield to look for more.”

“More kisses?”

“What?” Sarah groaned as Amy’s gesture drew her eyes to the TV where the woman she had saved was talking to the press. Going by Amy’s comment, she didn’t need to hear what she was saying to know what had been said either by her or the cops. “She kissed me… She took me by surprise!” she whined, sinking down in her seat as Amy laughed at her.

“Well, now you’re home I better head on up to bed. See if I can get any sleep with Justin snoring like that,” she nodded up to the ceiling with a huff as her husband’s snore echoed down through the floorboards. “Fool always snores louder when he’s got a beer or two in him.”

“I’m going to stay up a while longer. Need to unwind a little first,” she offered up as a weak excuse for why she would be awake all night.

“That good a kiss, huh?”

“What? That’s not— Ugh!” Groaning, Sarah pressed her lips together, holding her tongue while Amy got up and left the room.

Her eyes drifted back to the screen as the picture shifted, the camera craning up to show an all too familiar figure in the sky.

“Supergirl!”

She looked like a golden-haired deity come down from on high. Her posture was regal, her stance forceful even without her feet on the ground. The red of her cape fluttering down from broad shoulders. The blue of her form-fitting uniform paling in comparison to the blue of her eyes glinting in the lights as they searched around, even though the rest of her face was cast in darkness.

Sarah knew she would have to be careful every step of the way from now on.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN - I've gone through all the previous chapters to clean up and add/change a few things to make it a little clearer. For instance, in chapter 1, Alex and Nia aren't so eager to hurt Lena. And, if it isn't clear, most of that scene is from Lena's POV and she only _feels_ like everyone is out to get her. I can feel that way through depression... Lena grew up with people that really were out to get her.

“You _promised_ you would be careful!”

“I’m trying,” Sarah winced, her head instinctively moving away from Amy’s voice made sharp with concern through the bud in her left ear. “I couldn’t let them get any further and destroy another farm now could I?”

“Sarah, we’ve got the TV on right now! You turned their vehicles upside down!”

“Tornado?” Sarah shrugged even though Amy couldn’t see her. “You know those things drop out of nowhere without warning. Lots of damage.”

“Lucky it only hit some construction machinery then, huh?” Amy sassed back.

“Exactly!”

“Supergirl was there before the reporters were again.”

“Oh?” Sarah’s voice sounded high and tight even to herself. “Guess she put everything back upright then?”

“Actually, no. She looked around a bit, did that sulky pursed lips thing anything Ghost related brings out,” pausing in her narration, Amy tossed a dishcloth at Justin’s head in an attempt to silence his chuckles that turned to a roar of laughter moments later. “Then she glared at the workers and left.”

“Hmm?” That was unexpected as was the warmth that bloomed through her heart.

“Where are you now?”

“Erm, somewhere in Nevada… I think.”

“You think?”

“I got distracted,” Sarah shrugged. “I’m going to find somewhere to hole up for the night before I head home and open the shop up.”

“Wish you could be back here where it’s safe now. Some of the boys are coming over so you just know it’s going to end up in a game of poker and they won’t let me play.”

“What did you expect when they found out you were better than them!”

“Todd and Copper would be better at cards than you idiots!”

“I’ll be back not long after dawn to cheer you up,” Sarah promised, a smile wide across her face as she listened to their antics. “I would be there now but with Supergirl dogging my steps lately, I don’t want to have her tracking my flight path back home.”

“Get some sleep then. You can’t get into trouble when you’re asleep.”

Sarah wasn’t so sure about that. The last time she had succumbed to sleep she’d had such bad nightmares she had woken to the sound of her own screaming and her eyes blasting purple into the sky.

Luckily, she had been sleeping out under the stars in the wilds of Texas at the time and had managed to get out of there before Supergirl had turned up. Well, that wasn’t quite true, Supergirl _had_ seen her and even with miles of open sky between them, Sarah could swear she could feel the woman’s power that was almost magnetic as their eyes had met. But, something had distracted her and Sarah had made good her escape, zigzagging and doubling back around the world several times over just to be sure she wasn’t followed.

All Sarah wanted, was to protect the people and place she called home but, her ‘investigation’ to do just that put other people in her path that needed help. She could no more walk away and ignore them, any more than she had been able to do the first time.

However, every time she acted, it drew attention to Ghost from the last person Sarah wanted it from; Supergirl.

Sarah was managing to keep at least one step ahead of her but, she could feel the net closing in on her. She could feel the confrontation brewing, looming like a storm built of red and blue on the horizon.

Justin and Amy had tried to assure her that, if it happened, Supergirl would be reasonable but, all Sarah could see when she closed her eyes was Lex Luthor dead at their hands.

_“He was a bad guy!”_

But, so was she in the eyes of the law, the press and the Kryptonians. She had beaten Superman nearly to death and no assurances about her character from Justin and Amy led Sarah to believe she wouldn’t have finished the job if Lois Lane hadn’t come between them. What if it happened again? What if there was no one to bring her back if that happened?

Every time Sarah used her powers, she felt like a bomb one jostle or tick away from going off. But. She couldn’t stop now. Not even when she was been drawn inexorably towards the worst place to be when trying to avoid a specific Kryptonian.

National City.

Home to Supergirl herself.

That was where the belly of the two-headed beast of Lord and Edge lay. Right in the shadow of Supergirl’s cape in an innocuous building downtown. Hidden behind layers upon layers of firewalls and computer code in servers that not even Sarah had been able to hack into.

And she had tried.

All the locations she had been to, big or small, had held crumbs that dealt only with their part of the operation. All bleached and sanitized to the point that Sarah was only able to see the dirt beneath because she apparently had knowledge within her that let her see it.

Sarah could see glimpses of the bigger picture but there were still so many pieces to pull together that were hidden out of her reach.

She would work it out though, even if that meant coming face to face with Supergirl.

~~~~~~~~~~

Kara flew in through the open window into her apartment faster than was really necessary, the passing of her body sucking the curtains and the chilly night air inside in her wake as she strode towards the curtained off area of her bedroom.

A second later, she strode back out, her clothes changed from her uniform and the weight of all the expectations that came with wearing it, for the soft, worn sweatpants and white t-shirt she had been wearing before Brainy had interrupted movie night.

Floating over the back of the couch, she settled down in the space Alex and Kelly hastily made for her with a huff, grabbed a full pizza box off the stack on the coffee table. Sliding down in a slump, she put her feet up on the table and started eating. Her only acknowledgement of the others being there coming in a growl of warning as Alex’s hand inched towards a slice of pizza.

“No luck tracking Ghost, huh?” Alex asked simply to needle Kara for denying her a slice.

“Nope,” Kara mumbled. “Which movie are we on?”

“Same one. We paused it while you were gone.”

“You weren’t making out on my couch, were you?”

“No!”

“Yes,” Kelly ignored Alex’s blustering. “We did see some of the news while we were making out though.”

“Please don’t mention anything like that ever again,” Kara groaned.

“I agree,” Alex whined.

“I love this couch, guys. It’s comfy and don’t want to have to burn it.”

“Point is, we saw what Ghost did. We also saw that you didn’t undo it.”

“I wanted to get back before you ate all my pizza. And,” she mumbled, “that was one of the places Edge and Lord have got their fingers in. The one I was going to have a look at with Nia this weekend.”

“Ahh, so _that’s_ what you’re so grumpy about,” Alex nodded in understanding.

“I’m not grumpy!” Kara shot back grumpily.

“That’s not it,” Kelly shook her head knowingly.

“Uhh?”

“I just wanted my pizza,” Kara mumbled, cramming most of a slice into her mouth with a practised move.

“That’s not it either,” Kelly smiled softly.

“Is too!”

“Hmm, then what is it?” Alex questioned, leaning forward to make eye contact with Kelly as though Kara wasn’t even there.

“Doesn’t this go against that doctor, patient confidentiality thing?”

“The problem is that Kara was hoping to see Ghost.”

“She keeps turning up in places where Lord and Edge are. I want to know why.”

“You think she’s in with them?”

“Alex, you saw what she did to their equipment! Did that look like something you would do if you were working for them? And don’t even bring up what I did to Red Tornado, that thing and General Lane were not on our side!”

“All true with that branch of the Lane tree. I sometimes wonder if Lois and Lucy are really related to him? Back to Ghost though. We all saw what she did to Clark. I know you seem to think that was some kind of a mistake but—”

“Don’t forget all the people she’s been helping though, Alex. The cops don’t like it to get out but I’ve been there, I’ve heard from the people she’s helped—”

“And the people she tossed around while helping them—”

“She didn’t hurt them, Alex. Not badly.”

“Be careful, okay? I would rather not have to spend more time at the Fortress, not because it’s you in one of those healing pod things,” her voice shook and quavered at the thought and she clutched Kara’s arm, leaning into the solid warmth of her sister body so tightly she was able to grab Kelly on the other side of her.

Kara was one of the strongest beings on the planet but that didn’t mean she was safe from harm.

Knowing her sister worried, Kara quietly allowed her the comfort, only shifting her position enough to make sure she had a hand free to refuel her energy on pizza. Kelly started the movie again, filling the silence with the flickering images. Not even Kara’s favourite movie was enough to hold Kara’s attention though and as Dorothy and her friends worked their way down the yellow brick road, her thoughts turned, as they seemed to more often than not, to Ghost.

At the end of an actual therapy session with Kelly, and despite her teasing, the woman was actually good at separating sessions from their friendship, she had put it to her that she might be focussing on saving Ghost because of what she saw as a past failure. There were many of those to choose from; Red Daughter, her aunt Astra, not being there when Clark was a baby. There were too many but Kara knew that the name Kelly was letting her find on her own, was Lena.

She and Ghost seemed to be travelling the same path for some reason that intrigued Kara more than it probably should. It was drawing them together like two particles linked.

“Quantum entanglement,” Kara breathed softly, a smile curving her lips as she remembered that lunch so long ago, the way the warmth of Lena’s smile had rivalled the effects of the sun on her.

Kara had known, of course, what Lena was talking about. She might have struggled to adapt her Kryptonian learned science to what was current on Earth to avoid standing out as alien but, at the time, she had been so flustered by Lena she wasn’t sure she would have been able to remember her own name if asked.

Quantum entanglement and the Lena effect. It had always played hell on her composure and left her blurting out absurdities like “I flew here… on a bus” simply because she had looked into her green eyes or caught her mischievous smile.

~~~~~~~~~~

Following the flow of shuffling humanity, Sarah made her way to the front of the idling bus as it pulled to a stop and stepped down onto the sidewalk.

The area of the city the bus had stopped at was supposedly a quiet area but, after the farm, anything with more than five people together was a sensory overload. It overwhelmed her noise-cancelling headphones and had her clenching her fists and fighting against the urge to shoot straight up into the sky to escape the cacophony of sounds and smells.

Which would kind of defeat the purpose of using public transport on the last part of her journey into National City.

The populace of National City was made up of more than just the people that lived and worked there, the ones used to its quirks and moved around looking at their feet. Amongst them were tourists that were there hoping to catch a glimpse of National City’s heroes. In particular, Supergirl. They walked around with their heads up, their eyes on the skies.

Anyone new in the sky would draw attention from them and Supergirl herself in an instant.

Her stillness in the middle of the sidewalk earned her a disgruntled muttering and glances that lingered more than Sarah wanted. With a quick check to make sure her image inducer was doing its job, she allowed the flow of people to carry her along, safe in the knowledge that anyone looking at her more than once would see someone subtly different than their first glance had shown them.

It would stop people being able to make any kind of an ID to the police and more importantly, it would throw even the best facial recognition off.

Reaching one of the busier areas of the city, Sarah ordered a coffee from a food truck and found a bench to sit on to pretend to watch the world go by as she sipped at her coffee.

After her whirlwind tour of the globe, cities around the world were starting to all look the same to Sarah. Especially in North America. Some places stood out because of one particular landmark building but really, National City could easily be mistaken for Vancouver.

There was something about the place though that felt familiar. She knew if she walked a little further to the West, she would find a place that sold the best coffee and appetisers. She knew there was a skyscraper with darkened windows missing from the skyline.

If she dwelled on it though, the pain started in her head, blocking off her thoughts with memories of agony and the threat of her powers bursting forth in flesh searing beams of light from her eyes.

Throwing away the remains of her coffee in the nearest bin, Sarah took a less travelled path through the back alleys of National City, moving away from the areas built high with skyscrapers until the address she was looking for was within sight.

The squat looking building she found in a nondescript lot on the very outskirts of the docs looked just as abandoned as the others around it. All victims of the economy. But, Sarah could hear the hum of expensive, well-maintained electronics coming from within. They were hidden deep below the main floor behind walls lined with lead but someone had to be paying for the electricity that was running them.

Seriously, it seemed the best way to hide something from a Kryptonian was _not_ to put it behind something that created a black space under x-ray vision that screamed “Hey, Supergirl! I’m up to no good, come have a look!”

She looked around, wondering if she could make it in without being seen so she could get home but, a flash of red and blue streaking through the sky had her pulling back and pressing back into the shadows out of sight. Her fingers brushed the edge of her hoodie, ready to pull it up as Supergirl suddenly slowed her flight and hovered in place level with the tops of the tallest skyscrapers in the city.

It was the closest she had come to the Kryptonian in person and she was somehow managing to look regal with her cheeks bulging like a chipmunk’s from the doughnut crammed into her mouth.

The sheer absurd normalcy of it made Sarah shake her head, a smile inching across her face as her heart started to slow from the frantic rhythm Supergirl’s appearance had kicked it into.

~~~~~~~~~~

Taking the half-eaten doughnut from her mouth with a hand inexplicably trembling, Kara swallowed what was in her mouth past the lump in her throat and spun in a tight circle. Her cape wrapped around her body, cocooning her in a hug of thick, techy material.

Kara shrugged herself loose; her mind on what had stopped her mid-flight.

One second she had been lost in sugary goodness and the next a wave of melancholy had gripped her tight and punched her in the heart.

Heart!

She had been thinking about Lena’s heartbeat and imagined she had heard it.

Kara strained for the sound on instinct and found one somewhere below that was similar but much slower than Lena’s.

Tears pricked the back of her eyes as a familiar wave of questions, ‘what ifs’, and ‘if onlys’ crowded into her mind. Kara knew loss on a scale that was unimaginable to most of the population on Earth but, it was the loss of Lena that haunted Kara and always would.

That one life, so brilliant and beautiful, and a love realised too late to voice.

Her thoughts were interrupted by her personal, not Supergirl business, phone vibrating in her right boot. Plucking it out, she looked at the message from Nia warning her in words and more emoji’s that even Kara used, that Cat Grant was on the warpath.

Pushing her phone back into hiding in her boot, she flew on, her doughnut dangling forgotten between her fingers.

~~~~~~~~~~

Like a person dying of thirst in a desert, Sarah stared in wonderment at the oasis that was the National City Central Library. She could smell the unique scent of books; bound paper imbued with the scent of ink and all the hands that had held them, from blocks away. There were better, more eco-friendly ways to enjoy works of written art, she knew that. However, whoever she had been before, Sarah felt her fingers itch with the need to touch and read tomes of bound paper.

Slipping into the vast building, she looked around in awe, taking it all in before picking a direction at random and losing herself in the myriad of sections and the mazes of stacks crammed with books.

She had time to kill and an unquenchable thirst to read that saw her carefully reading the spines, picking out ones that caught her eye. With a quick look around, she flicked through her chosen book at superhuman speed, marking her favourites off in her mind to seek out later to enjoy at a more human pace when she had the chance.

The non-fiction section drew her reluctantly in to the shelves of bigger books with pretentious covers of celebrities patting themselves on the back with the aid of a huge ego, and in a lot of cases, a ghost-writer paid to make them seem more interesting than they really wear and gloss over their faults.

There was, unsurprisingly, a section for the Luthor family. The earlier books patted them on the back but none so much as the ones focussed upon Lex Luthor. They fawned over the Luthor golden child. The Man of Tomorrow. Until the newer ones that told of his sudden and unexpected descent into madness before his death.

Sarah had a near-perfect, photographic memory if she ignored all the years missing to her.

But.

Everything she read about the Luthors slipped her mind like grains of sand slipping through an hourglass. She read about him been awarded the award and label of Man of Tomorrow, and his Pulitzer and her mind just screamed that the whole thing was wrong!

_He had—_

_And then there was the time he’d—_

_The sun—_

_Hitmen—_

_Pain—_

_He’d—_

_“Checkmate—”_

_He._

And it wasn’t just Lex.

Lillian Luthor, Lex’s mother, had a similar effect on her.

And then there was the sister, Lena.

Only, Sarah couldn’t remember anything about her. She had read every word printed, listened to every interview and watched all the news reports, she had spent hours staring at photographs until they were burnt onto her retinas. Then seconds later, every detail was gone as though her mind rejected it.

Sarah stared down blankly at the family portrait in the book she had unknowingly picked up off the shelf and closed it with a snap that startled her. Shaking her head, she put the book back in its place and walked away without a second thought.


	9. Chapter 9

Kara could feel her teeth almost crumbling to dust under the pressure she was putting on them to hide her frustration as the cause of it followed her out of the raucous interior of the bar and into the night. Pulling her coat around body hard enough to put a strain on the stitching, she looked up, letting the steadily falling rain cool her ire as the door to the bar closed, muffling the noise from within.

“Kara, where are you going?”

The lining of Kara’s pockets ripped as she shoved her hands deep into them and clenched her fists tight.

“I’m heading home. I’ve got work tomorrow. Maybe you should be heading home too? You’ve got a flight to London to catch early in the morning. Unless you were lying about that too?”

“I changed my flight for a later one. I thought maybe we could spend a little time together, for old times’ sake?”

Kara felt bile rising up from deep within, threatening to bring the too warm beer she had drank with it. Swallowing it down, she wheeled around, catching the smarmy smile on his smarmy face.

“There is no ‘old times’, William!” She snapped at him. “We had one date years ago. One! One that I was guilted into and that I regretted every single moment of.”

The man she had first come to know on Earth-38 had been insufferable. It didn’t matter that he was ‘investigating’ the loss of a friend, he had been mean when there was no need for it. Moreover, the Earth-Prime version had been little better with his inability to take no for an answer to the point he stalked her endlessly, putting on a good guy act that she had felt pressured to give in to. The only difference between the two realities was that instead of investigating Andrea Rojas, he had been at CatCo investigating Lena.

“Kara—”

“I told you no, years ago and yet you kept telling everyone I was your girlfriend. Don’t deny it!” she barked out as he opened his mouth to interrupt. “I heard all about _that_ lie for myself. As for tonight! I only came because you begged me because it was your leaving party and yet I’m the only one here?!”

“You’re the only one I invited. The only one that matters, Kara. Please, don’t leave me.”

“Nope! You are not guilting me!” Kara squared her shoulders resolutely, recognising his attempt to do exactly that.

“Goodbye, William.”

Pulling her collar up on her coat, she turned and strode away in the direction of the docks. Thanks to an informant, she had a lead on Edge and Lord to follow at a warehouse. With any luck, there would be someone there spoiling for a fight so she could work off some frustration on people that deserved it instead of having to go to the tower and disturb M’gann so she could punch some rocks in the basement gym.

Unfortunately, the source of her frustration was still following her too closely even for Kara to risk whipping off her glasses and taking to the sky to escape him.

“Stop following me!” she hissed loudly over her shoulder.

“Where are you going, Kara? Your apartment is in the other direction.”

“That’s none of your business, William. Never was, never will be.” Kara increased her speed a little, hoping to lose him without making it seem too easy but it just made him call out to her even louder right in the area close to the buildings where she needed quiet.

“Wait! Are you investigating a story!?” William queried eagerly.

Grabbing him by the front of his expensive but ill-fitting jacket, Kara spun him around and backed him into the shadows of another building out of view of the abandoned warehouses.

“Shut up!” she pressed him back against the rain-soaked brickwork.

“You are on an investigation! I can help,” he whispered more quietly under the fierce glare Kara levelled at him. For such a quietly spoken, mild-mannered woman, there were times when she looked capable of yeeting him into the sun without breaking a sweat. Which was frankly a huge turn-off as he preferred his women to do what he wanted without question.

“It’s that Edge thing I’ve heard whispers of, right? I’m a world-renowned reporter, Kara. I’ve worked undercover before and I know how to do it well. Just tell me what you’re looking for and I can guide you!”

Kara wasn’t sure if he’d had too much to drink before she had got to the bar for his ‘leaving party’ or if he was just that full of himself but, if he didn’t shut up, he was going to draw too much attention their way!

She debated just knocking him out herself but a soft groan that echoed the one in her mind every time William opened her mouth came from above, catching her attention at the exact same time as the sound of guns cocking and the press of a weapon against her side and another connected with William’s temple with a solid jab.

“You talk too loudly for your own good.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Shaking her head in disbelief, Sarah dragged a palm down her face and used it to muffle her groan of frustration as the couple were poked and prodded with carefully wielded weapons towards the warehouses.

She had been all set to work her way over to the warehouse after some last-minute reconnaissance to determine the location of security cameras, sensors and the best way to avoid them. Sure of her approach, the loud, determined footsteps and voices heading towards it had made her hold her position on the low rooftop while the couple had talked.

Just two seconds after hearing the man’s voice, Sarah had been tempted to let the image inducer do its job and turn her to Ghost so she could scare him. And that had been before she had heard what he was saying and how he talked to the woman he had pursued down the sidewalk.

Reports? And investigating Edge too. Well, one trying to investigate and the other giving the game away with a combination of a too-loud voice, masculine ego and mansplaining ways.

Looking over the edge of the roof, Sarah watched as they were frogmarched to the warehouse door by the well-suited goons. The man looked like he was on the verge of tears whilst the woman— The woman was chatting away with them, asking questions and acting like getting caught was all part of a National City tourist thing?

Before getting thrust through the doors and out of sight, the blonde turned, a hand lifting to her glasses. Her whole body seemed to grow before Sarah’s eyes, becoming hard and statuesque, her chest and shoulders expanding in a way that had Sarah holding her breath in anticipation. And then, she shrank in on herself, her hand dropping back to her side as she glanced at her blubbing companion and the security cameras above the door.

Sarah didn’t know what she had seen but there were bright flashes of light exploding in her eyes and pain exploding through her temples. Clutching her head, she curled into a ball, stifling a moan that threatened to explode into a scream.

_“I guess that's your cue—”_

_“I guess that's your cue—”_

_“I guess that's your cue—”_

_“Your cue—”_

_“I—”_

Blinking through the calmness, Sarah uncurled from where she was lying on the roof and sat for a moment with her back against the low wall. Peeling off her ski mask up, she looked up at sky, staring blindly through the rain pelting her face to the faint glimmer of stars glinting through the cracks in the clouds despite the lights of the city working to block them from view.

Carefully smoothing her ski mask back into place, she turned and looked at the warehouse. She scoured the first floor or the warehouse and the mezzanine area that housed a few offices and what once might have been a break room or locker room with her x-ray vision but they were empty apart from a few pigeon’s sleeping high up amongst the metal beams that crisscrossed the building, and rodents scurrying around in search of food.

The goons must have taken the man and women down into the area below where the lead lining the walls and ceilings protected them from sight. Which was not good a good sign for the couple. Being allowed to see behind the scenes of an evil lair was akin to seeing your kidnappers face. It didn’t end well unless you were James Bond or had Supergirl for a friend.

Flying up out of the rang of the security cameras protecting the lower floor, Sarah silently alighted on the roof. Working quickly but quietly, she checked the roofing for any wires and peeled back a corner of the roof and eased her way inside.

The whole building was overprotected with security cameras that were modern, expensive and, in most cases, well hidden. She also hadn’t seen many of them when she had looked at the building earlier in the day so they were expecting trouble and hoping to catch it.

As good as the cameras were, Sarah was better.

Calculating angles and thinking out of the box, she zipped around the warehouse with careful bursts of speed. Working above and below the cameras, she nudged them just enough out of sight of the entrance of the lower area and rewired others at a speed too fast for the equipment or anyone watching, to notice any change in the feed as she put them on a loop. All to give herself and the people she was now having to rescue the best possible chance.

~~~~~~~~~~

Kara looked around the maze of servers surrounding them. She hadn’t thought about her friend in a long time but right then she kind of wished that Winn was there to see all of it and help her out as she had no idea where to start with them once she was free to look.

Which wasn’t going to be happening at all with William there to take into account and too many camera’s focussed upon her with their unblinking black lenses lit by the glow of server lights and a red light on their housing to signal that they were all working.

If she changed into her uniform, her secret would be out, and knowing Edge and Lord, it was a toss-up to if it would be used to blackmail her or if she would be exposed worldwide before she was even out of the building. Even if they did nothing, she couldn’t trust that William wouldn’t. Going on past dealing with him, he would either expose her to get a Pulitzer or blackmail her into a date.

If she was in luck though, the goons would knock him out for her just to shut him up and then she might be able to find an opening to act.

They finally grew tired of him but instead of knocking him out, one of the unnamed goons moved away, leaving the other to watch them too carefully while he walked across the room to a storage cupboard and returned with two shock sticks that crackled with blue light.

The threat was clear; shut up or get shocked. And yet it just made William cry all the more.

Kara felt one press to her side, which she felt was really unfair as she hadn’t said anything. And then all she felt was pain as the button was pressed and electricity arched through her body.

She crashed to her hands and knees, her heart stuttering in her chest as the pain continued long after the stick was pulled away. The last time she had been shocked and felt pain that high it had been at Livewires hands.

Fortunately, William hadn’t been shocked with such a high charge but that, Kara realised, was because he wasn’t the target as was evident when he knelt down beside her and grasped her chin harshly, pulling her limp, almost unresponsive body into a kneeling position.

“Have to say, you don’t look much like a Ghost.”

“Not yet anyway.”

The rough chuckle of his friend had Kara attempting to struggle but it came out more of a weak flopping motion that stilled, her eyes growing impossibly wide behind her glasses as the lights went out and another voice that was unexpected and strangely welcome came from behind them.

The voice was every bit as creepy as Kara had heard it would be from talking to the people Ghost had stopped from causing harm. The ones Ghost had rescued had a different idea on what her voice was like and Kara realised why as she could hear the mechanical manipulation even through the buzzing in her ears.

“That’s because you got the wrong person, boys.”

A face loomed out of the darkness. The ghostly, ghastly apparition making even the hardened, well-trained goons freeze.

Kara tried to move again as the goon propping her up moved but she sagged forward, her limbs still largely out of her control. Ghost had no such problems though and Kara watched as she moved between the two goons, pushing and moving them away with quick moves that avoided destroying the servers and the goons themselves.

As she was working on one, the other crept up behind her, a shock stick raised ready to strike.

“Look- look out!”

Purple flashed around her eyes, bursting forth in a controlled blast that heated up the shock stick until the goon dropped the burning metal with a cry of pain as his hand smouldered that was snuffed out by a blast of freeze breath that blew him off his feet and into a wall.

“Let’s see you stop these, bitch!”

Kara’s eyes widened in fear for William not herself as the goon still standing grabbed a semi-automatic weapon from the storage locker and pointed it their way. She was still weak from the shock and too far away to protect him when the trigger was pulled but she tried to move anyway, inching her way towards him.

Ghost was fast though. As the sharp retort of bullets rang out, she raced ahead of them, putting herself in their path until the clip ran out and the last of the crumpled shells clinked to the ground.

“My turn. Hmm, let’s see what else is in your little cupboard.”

She was gone in a flash but, in a sign that her strength was coming back, Kara was able to keep up with Ghost’s movements. She quickly rifled through the cupboard and returned to stand between them and the goon seconds later with two batons in her hands. The batons extended with precise flicks of her wrists that had purple energy flowing down to crackle around their lengths.

Reminding Kara once again of Red Daughter.

“Hmm, that’s unexpected.”

Looking up, Kara caught a twinkle of purple glowing around the corners of her eyes in the dimly lit room and then she was off again, her body moving with a wild grace that was part barroom brawl and part master fencer.

Within seconds, the second goon was left in a groaning heap on top of his partner and Ghost was walking back towards her.

“Are you okay?” Sarah asked the top of the blonde reporters head as it was the only bit of her she could see.

“Been better, been worse,” Kara groaned. Rao! Whatever level of electricity they had hit her with it had hit so hard she was having trouble shaking it off!

“How about… him?” Sarah rolled her eyes as the man let out an overly exaggerated whimper. “Think you can get him out of here on your own?” She was tempted to fly him out herself but, for not even attempting to move to shield the blonde, Sarah knew if she touched him, she would toss his sorry ass in the cold water of the harbour and leave him there.

Surging to her feet, Kara snagged Ghost’s arm in passing as she turned to walk away. Her hand slid down, snagging on Ghost’s slender wrist and gloved fingers. The touch felt right and somehow familiar in a way that made Kara’s mind stutter and sent her body reeling backwards slightly, breaking her hold.

“What are you going to do?” Kara asked thickly, stumbling over her words as she gathered herself.

“What I came here to do,” Sarah replied, her eyes already working over the servers to work out where best to start.

“You are after Edge,” Kara whispered. “I should stay—”

“You can barely stand on your own two feet. You! Help her or I will toss your sorry ass straight to the moon!”

Kara couldn’t help but smile, even if it came out weak and just a bit crooked, as William jumped to his feet with a yelp like he had been stuck with a knife as Ghost addressed him. He grabbed her, hauling her away from Ghost and the room before Kara could put up much of a fight. Before they were halfway up the stairs leading up though, Kara something, someone, brush against her body and had her lifted her head from their careful study of her feet.

William obviously hadn’t noticed anything in his rush to escape the warehouse and Ghost and Kara didn’t react or say anything.

As soon as she could, Kara sent Alex and Nia a text to let them know where they needed to check but, even as she was sending it, she could hear the wail of sirens heading in the direction of the warehouse and saw the orange and red glow of fire rising into the sky.

“The crazy bitch torched the place!”

“She saved us—”

“She tried to kill Superman and now she’s tried to kill me! Cat will have to keep me on now! I’m too important!”

It wasn’t until much later, after she had finally gotten rid of William, leaving him to his delusions when she was back in her apartment that Kara found that one of the few business cards she carried with her was missing from the pocket of her coat and there was a hastily scrawled note in blocky print in its place.

“I’ll be in touch – G.”

~~~~~~~~~~

“So, did you get any kisses this time?”

“Amy,” Sarah huffed, brushing a layer of ash off her shoulder. “The place was booby-trapped, barely managed to get what I needed before everything went up. So no, no kissing.”

“Are you okay?” Amy asked, concern colouring her voice and clouding her eyes.

“Yeah, my clothes just got lightly toasted,” Sarah pursed her lips as she poked at a hole in her ski mask and hoodie. “My skin is tough, clothing not so much.”

“Are you heading home then?”

“No, think I need to stick around here for a couple of days. Seems like it’s a main place of operation for Lord and Edge so I want to take a good look around before I leave. Also—”

“What?” Amy asked after a long pause stretched out.

Sarah shook her head, trying to loosen cobwebs of golden blonde from her thoughts.

“There’s this reporter I saw there today—”

“Oh?”

“No kissing,” Sarah rolled her eyes as Justin appeared over Amy’s shoulder and started waggling his eyebrows wildly. She was regretting persuading them to give video calling a go… until she saw Amy push him away with a hand to his face and then it was all worth it again.

“She’s investigating Edge too. Maybe I can use that to our advantage. After all, she’s got to be more reputable than Ghost. More likely to be listened to anyway.” It had been a spur of the moment decision that she had tried to talk herself out of at least twenty times already but, she really could be of use.

“I feel like a broken record here but, be careful!”

“I will,” Sarah smiled. “Don’t worry, I’ll be back in a couple of days. No more than a week. Time enough to get all the farms up and running and save the town.”

After the call ended, Sarah sat back in her chair in the small motel room she was renting. Through the dirty window she could make out the skyscrapers dominating the skyline and, in a blink and miss it blur, she saw the flutter of a red cape streaming from blue-clad shoulders as Supergirl went about her business.

She had more important things to do though.

Picking up one of her modified image inducers, she opened up the small device and started tinkering with it. With her ski mask damaged, she wanted to be sure she could trust it to work even without it on. In theory, it should just be able to switch from changing her face to others to obscuring her as much as the ski mask would and still be able to project her Ghost face. She was Ninety-five percent sure it would work but that still left a five percent chance of failure and that was not a place for failure.

Putting it aside for a moment, she picked up the business card, her fingers running over the embossed lettering on the reporter’s name.

Kara Danvers.

_You are my hero.’_

_You can scream at me if you'd like. I know I deserve it.’_

_‘I killed my brother for you, for our friends!’_

_‘Don't you understand what you've done?’_

Sarah slowly tucked the business card away out of sight and, picking up her tools, returned to her task.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN - Well, they met... kind of. Unfortunately for anyone wanting a quick resolution, Kara's powers were wonky which made the darkness a bit of an issue (also, Sarah is good at tech so while she could work out that Ghost was using something to disguise her voice she couldn't tell anything more than that) and Sarah was too busy being all mysterious and kicking butt... and her memory problems are still stopping her from piecing things together.
> 
> aka... author likes drama!


	10. Chapter 10

The solid press of cold, gloved fingers against her side had Kara flinching away, a hiss of pain making it past clenched teeth despite her best efforts. She couldn’t help it though, the kind of pain that went with her powers being diminished was something she would never get used to.

“It still hurts?” Alex looked up, concern furrowing her brow. “It’s been two days. Have you been exposing it to the sun like I told you too?”

“Your fingers are cold,” Kara whined defensively, trying to deflect Alex away from her discomfort. Her sister’s brow beetled into a solid line, her lips pursing in a way that told Kara that she didn’t quite believe her and if she hadn’t been concerned for her, she would have slapped her on the shoulder.

“Cold doesn’t usually bother you, Kara.”

“Fine it is still a bit tender,” she finally admitted, squirming around on the hard wooden dining chair in the makeshift first-aid area that was Alex and Kelly’s kitchen. As Alex turned away, grumbling under her breath while she removed her gloves and tossed them into the bin, Kara took advantage of where they were to grab a bag of chips from the nearest cupboard.

“Really, Kara, you couldn’t wait five minutes for Nia and Brainy to get here with the food?” Alex sighed fondly as she watched Kara’s cheeks bulging alarmingly with the chips she was inhaling like she was starving or just afraid they were going to be taken from her.

“That’s too long,” Kara smirked around a mouthful of chips.

“At least that damn thing they hit you with didn’t mess with your hunger.” Giving Kara a one-armed hug, Alex pressed a kiss to her temple.

“I take it that Kara is going to live then? May I?” M’gann gestured towards Kara’s side and lifted the edge of her shirt after getting what may have been a grunt of agreement or a muffled burp and a nod.

“Hmm, a powerful weapon to mark a Kryptonian,” she mused as she leaned in to study the livid bruises that radiated out from two small marks where the probes of the shock stick had pressed against her.

“Felt like being hit by three Livewires at the same time,” Kara grumbled. “Luckily they didn’t hit William with the same charge.”

“I don’t know,” Alex grumbled. “Personally, I think that douche could have done with a slightly higher blast than he got.”

“Alex!” Kara tried to school her face into a mask of shock but she could feel the smile threatening to break across her lips.

“Don’t ‘Alex’ me, I saw you smile at the thought of that,” Alex shot back.

“I’ve never met the man but, from what I have heard about him, I agree with Alex,” M’gann added.

“Can’t believe I was stupid enough to fall for his ‘good guy’ act,” Alex grumbled.

“Me either,” Kara sighed. “He’s gone now though. Cat gave him a dressing down right in front of everyone and it was awesome and scary at the same time,” she grinned. “She told him if he didn’t leave she would have him blacklisted with every publication, reputable or not, to the point he wouldn’t be able to get a job writing horoscopes for a conspiracy site.”

“And knowing Cat, she could do it too.”

“Absolutely!” Kara grinned. “William went so pale I thought he was going to pass out and then he left. Actually, he ran down the stairs so he wouldn’t have to wait for an elevator. It was awesome!”

“I’m glad he’s gone,” Alex smiled, carefully leaving her thankfulness for the fact that he had never learned Kara’s secret unspoken. Kelly would have called it progress but it was one that was hard-learned from watching her sister crumble at the thought of how long she had withheld that part of herself from Lena for too long.

“Wish we knew what the hell they hit you with though,” she grumbled as Kara winced while she pulled her top back down again. “That was no normal shock stick to mess with your powers and bruise you like that,” she helplessly repeated what they already knew like it would make a difference to hear it one more time.

It was at times like that, that she wished they still had the resources of the DEO at their disposal but, as far as Brainy had been able to make out, Lex had been paranoid and kept all the information they had collected restricted to the servers there and there had been no other branches of the DEO to pool resources from; not even the desert facility they had once used had been there after the Multiverse had reset.

“It could well be something designed to use against a more powerful alien species,” M’gann added. “There were weapons used on both sides of the Martian war that would obliterate a human that would only subdue us. There are sure to be other planets with similar technology.”

“Or it could be human-made,” Kara pointed out. “Lex had all his research on Clark to go off as well as access to Red Daughter. He was more than capable of coming up with something but he was always fixated upon using Kryptonite.”

“Killing you with a piece of Krypton was always his dream.”

“And his downfall. He got so locked in on that he forgot there was anyone else around capable of making and using weapons.” Alex’s finger twitched reflexively, remembering the moment she had pulled the trigger and ended his vile life. It had been necessary and she would do it a million times over, but it was still there, marked on her soul and conscious that she hadn’t been able to find a way other than killing.

“Lord was capable too,” Kara mused. “Edge has been the name at the front of their operations but Lord is a part of it too. We don’t know how much he remembers on this Earth but we know what he was capable of. Those guards hit me with that thing thinking I was Ghost, they know she’s investigating them!”

Fidgeting in her seat, Kara fought the sudden urge to fly off into the night to track down Ghost to protect her.

The note from the mysterious woman remained Kara’s secret and it ticked away like the tell-tale-heart on her conscience as she looked up at her sister.

Kara’s presence in Alex’s life, in the lives of the Danvers family, had been beyond her control just as leaving Krypton had. But, it had changed Alex irrevocably. At first, she had wanted nothing to do with the girl that had suddenly become her sister. A girl she had been ordered to protect by her parents from day one.

It was a role forced onto her and the one moment, in Alex’s eyes, she had failed, it had resulted in her father been taken away from them.

Kara had felt guilty about it but she knew it was nothing compared to how Alex felt. In her eyes, she had failed and lost a parent. If she failed again what else, who else, might she lose? Her mother? The sister she had come to love?

It was pressure no one should have to endure but Alex did so without complaint even as the pressure manifested in an unhealthy drinking problem she was still fighting. It had led to her being recruited into the DEO under the guise to protect Kara. To protect her from been ‘recruited’. To protect her from becoming a hero like Superman and putting herself and family into the crosshairs.

Alex was pressured and programmed from all sides to protect above all else. Her innate desire forged into a weapon to be wielded by others.

Thanks to Kelly and the demise of the DEO, Alex was starting to find her true personality. Now each morning, instead of strapping on a weapon, she picked up a doctors bag and headed to a clinic downtown to treat humans and aliens when not needed to fight at their side as a masked vigilante.

The need to protect was always there though and Kara knew that if she mentioned Ghost’s message, she would be reaching for her uniform and gearing up to fight. The fact that Ghost had only done good wouldn’t matter to her as all she would see was how Ghost had left Clark beaten to a pulp.

And, Kara could understand that she really could, but Clark had admitted that he’d made mistakes that day and Kara wanted to see more. She needed the hope that there was more to Ghost and maybe that was her strength and weakness just as protecting was Alex’s.

Until she knew more though, she was going to keep Ghost to herself just a little bit longer. At least until she knew what her message had been about.

~~~~~~~~~~

From the carefully selected position of her office, Cat Grant was afforded a view over almost the entirety of her domain where it spread across that floor. There were more floors besides that worked just as diligently to her carry out her commands but this floor was special as it was the one was what Cat considered the heart of CatCo while her office, now she was back in it, was the brains.

It was quiet there at the moment though, the lights were dimmed and a hush had fallen over the building as everyone had left for the day, leaving Cat alone with her thoughts now that the janitorial staff had quickly gone about their business and left.

After she had left CatCo for pastures new, she had never expected to return but, the moment she had stepped back through the doors and sat at her desk, it had felt like coming home in a way she had never felt anywhere else before.

There was a thrill to it that not even politics had been able to come close to. But then, politics was a largely stodgy, male-dominated bastion of all that was wrong in the world. Instead of getting things done, they preferred to follow an old-boys club mentality of doing business that required the greasing of palms and dealing with rules that had been in place before the first settlers had stepped off the boat instead of doing what was right.

After President Marsdin was outed as an alien, it had become obvious that it was only going to get worse and it had. She had been able to change opinions and open more minds with one issue of CatCo magazine than she had several years in Washington.

Between those walls of glass, she was home.

There were things she missed now she was back in National City though, her son for one. They talked every day though. With the determination of a daughter that knew what it was like to be ignored and belittled by an indifferent mother, she made sure to do at least that. Then, once the current term was over, he could move back to be with her.

Which she knew he was looking forward as his crush on Supergirl had never quite left.

Cat looked at Kara’s old desk fondly. She was quite willing to admit to herself that she missed seeing the bubbly blonde sitting there when she looked up from her work during the day even if she was proud that Kara had managed to impress Snapper enough to earn her own corner office.

Now she just needed Kara to find her fire and passion for journalism again and help turn the mess it had become since she left. Though, she wasn’t so full of herself that she didn’t know the real reason for Kara’s lack of fire. She had kept an eye on all things Supergirl and especially all things Kara Danvers after she had left and knew the friendship that had formed between her and Lena Luthor.

A Super and a Luthor.

The most unlikely of partnerships and yet they had been perfect together.

A potential love story for the ages if only one of them would have plucked up the nerve to admit it to the other. Both of them had radiated with joy in photos snapped of them together and, Kara’s first story about Lena had read like a love letter in a way that had Cat tipping a glass to Leslie Willis for spotting Supergirl’s Sapphic vibes before anyone else.

Cat had been sure that Lena might have been brave enough, she had certainly seemed bold when she was away from the stifling control Lillian exerted on the few occasions when Cat had met both before and after Lex had tried to kill Superman. But, she had seemed content to take a step back while that bland piece of man-child had been taken under Kara’s reluctant wing.

A decision that had made Cat secretly question Kara’s ability to make decisions without her there to guide her.

Cat almost wondered if she had managed to manifest Kara as she heard the soft sound of feet coming to land upon the balcony that flanked the windows but there was no fluttering red cape of golden hair to be seen as she looked outside.

Brows furrowing, Cat pushed her chair quietly back from her desk and left her office. If the noise had come from the elevators she would have been no less bold in her decision to investigate but, she would have made sure to have her phone handy ready to call down to security. A noise from outside… Well, even in National City with its alien populace, there were only so many people that could fly all the way up to that balcony and know they could get inside.

As she rounded the corner though, she realised that it was definitely not the person she expected to see making a late-night visit.

“It is normal practice to make an appointment and sign in before visiting, Ghost.”

Cat smirked quietly, mentally patting herself on the back as Ghost almost jumped out of their skin. Even in the dim office lightning, she saw the dark-clad figure still and stiffen before her head turned slightly.

The bone-white of the ghostly face she had become known for came into view, reflecting off the windows beyond. Cat had seen the outline of the face beyond before it did though and it didn’t match what she was seeing as Ghost turned fully around.

Curious.

Terrifying.

But curious.

“I’m not sure why you think it is okay to break into my building but,” she held up a hand to still anything Ghost might say and hopefully delay her from floating closer, “before we get into that transgression. Thank you for saving Kara the other night.”

“Just Kara?” Sarah stilled, floating in place when it became clear that the formidable owner of CatCo wasn’t going to run from her as she had hoped.

Cat smiled, ignoring the shiver than ran down her spine at her voice and let Ghost come to her own conclusion about her feelings when it came to William Dey.

“Now,” cocking a brow and a hip, Cat looked at her with determination glinting in her eyes. “Why _are_ you here?”

“That is between myself and Ms Danvers,” Sarah replied, curling her hand around the memory stick filled with everything she had collected so far including what she had been able to get from the servers before the building had gone up in flames.

“Hmm. Then I suggest you come back when Kara is around,” Cat replied challengingly. Emboldened by Ghost’s lack of aggression and willingness to talk, Cat moved closer. “I might be willing to consider doing a sit-down interview so you can tell your side on why you tried to kill Superman.”

Cat froze as Ghost’s eyes flashed with purple light. She wasn’t sure if it was what she had said or moving closer that had made her react but she wasn’t willing to push her luck after making what felt like progress.

“That— I didn’t mean— I just want to give something to Ms Danvers.”

Cat stared at the woman thoughtfully. “About where you were with her?” she asked in a voice pitched so low that only someone with superhearing would be able to pick up. “Nod if it is.”

Sarah looked around the offices, using all her abilities to look for bugs. There were none as far as she could see but Cat Grant’s words and actions had her nodding her head slightly rather than answering or flying away.

“Hmm.” With a nod of her head, her decision made, Cat picked up a piece of paper from a nearby desk and quickly jotted down an address. Folding it in half, she held it out. “Try here.” She held the paper determinedly for a moment as gloved fingers closed around the other end of it. Up close the visage of the woman was even more horrifying but Cat trusted her instincts and what Kara had divulged about her. That didn’t stop her from giving a warning even if it was in protection of a being far more powerful than herself. “If you hurt her—”

“I won't.” Taking the paper as Cat’s slender fingers released it with a dismissive flick of manicured nails, Sarah backed away and left with Cat’s eyes burning a hole between her shoulders the whole way.

~~~~~~~~~~

Alighting on the edge of a building opposite CatCo, Sarah watched the building and the sky carefully. She could see and hear Cat Grant moving around but there was no appearance of Supergirl which Sarah found bizarre as even the most basic of searches online revealed that Supergirl had been a regular guest on Cat Grant’s balcony before she had left National City.

Their names had been linked to the point that there had been speculation that there was more to their relationship. Even though Sarah believed that love was love no matter what the age, there was a strange feeling in her stomach like snakes writhing when she thought about them being together and she couldn’t understand why.

Pushing aside the feeling, she unfolded the piece of paper Cat had handed her and studied the address. Hope Street. Her eyes lifted, finding an area across the city she was still a stranger too.

Why?

The precise click of heels upon sidewalk drew her gaze down to the front of the brightly lit street in front of CatCo where Cat Grant was, a security guard standing quietly at her side as a dark coloured town car pulled up. The security guard stepped forward, the gun in its shoulder holster gleaming in the street lights as his tall frame bent to open the door for her.

Why?

Cat Grant was the kind of person whose opinions you could cut yourself on. All sharp edges and cutting words.

_Just like—_

So why was she so willing to hand over the address of one of the people that worked for her?

Why?

The question rattled around Sarah’s head, echoing into the darkness long after her car had pulled away.

And still, Supergirl was absent from the skies.

Was it a trap? If she turned up at Kara Danvers’ apartment would she find Supergirl lying in wait?

There were too many unanswered questions but, instead of being sensible, Sarah floated up from her perch and flew towards whatever was about to happen.

~~~~~~~~~~

Kara’s feet scuffed along the sidewalk, disturbing the puddles that lingered from a shower earlier in the day and making them sparkle from the lights. She could have made the journey from Alex and Kelly’s apartment to her own in a matter of seconds but there was something calling to Kara that night that could only be assuaged by a lonely walk through streets bathed in midnight hues.

She kept an ear on the city, listening for any screams or cries for help that would signal that she was needed somewhere else.

So many years since she had taken up the mantle of Supergirl and there were still some bad guys that just didn’t understand that even on the darkest of nights, the yellow sun that gave her power was still there, reflecting off the moon.

She could feel it even then, the gentle buzz of it filling her with energy. Maybe not as strong as it was when the sun was full in the sky but, it was there all the same.

She wondered for a moment if Ghost was out somewhere that night feeling it too? Would she hear her and come if she called her name?

Kara shook her head at her thoughts and at what felt like an almost dangerous attachment she was feeling towards the unknown Kryptonian that had only strengthened after she had saved them at the warehouse.

Her pace increased as her apartment came in sight, causing only a slight twinge in her side from where she had been shocked. Whatever Lord and Edge were up to needed to be stopped before someone was hurt that couldn’t handle it.

The familiarity of the sounds of the other occupants of the apartment block brought a smile to Kara’s face but she relaxed completely only when the door to her own was closed behind her and the strings of fairy lights that looped around every wall were pushing aside the darkness and the feeling of tightness that always came over her when stepping inside a dark room.

Kara kept her glasses on, taking advantage of the way the lead-lined frames dampened her powers just enough to soften the harsh edges of the world and make everything just a bit more bearable. She rarely needed them any more, not for that, not since she had become Supergirl and learned how to control that part of herself more. Sometimes though, there was just a comfort to them that she needed even in her own home but since the warehouse, she had needed to rely on to them just a little more.

Luckily, no one had seemed to notice during games night or Alex would have dragged her off to the Tower to run more tests on her.

A frown of confusion raced across Kara’s brow as she heard a knock just as she was about to step through the curtain that separated her bedroom from the rest of the open-plan apartment. She looked towards the door, her sleep softened mind wondering why anyone would be at her door… And then another light tapping had her gaze shifting towards the window and the shadow she could see floating just outside.

Her mind jumped straight to the only possible explanation and unthinkingly, she whipped aside the curtains, her eager cry of her cousin’s name thankfully dying off as a croak of shock at the first syllable at the sight of Ghost there and not Clark.

“Cl— You?”

Ghost’s head lifted, her white face of sharp angles and stretched skin coming into view from the darkness beneath the shadow of her hoodie. Even though Kara was expecting it, it still had her drawing her breath in sharply before she could control her reaction. Her voice whispered out quietly, graveyard cold and dripping with something beneath that slightly mechanical layer that Kara could still pick up on despite her powers.

Growing suspicion, Kara peeked over the top of her glasses and tried to use her x-ray vision on Ghost. They all knew what she looked like from when she had fought Clark but the voice and the way she had felt when she had touched her at the warehouse didn’t gel with that image. All Kara got for her efforts though was a spike of pain when she tried to see her face.

Modulated voice and disguised face?

They were all looking for the woman that had beaten Clark and not taken into account that time in the sun might have healed her!

“I’m sorry to disturb you but I wanted to—”

“Come in before someone sees you!”

Kara stepped back, quelling the urge to drag her unexpected guest inside. “I found your note,” she spoke up as she floated inside, her feet hovering just above the floor even when she came to a halt barely inside. “Didn’t think I would see you here though.”

“You wouldn’t have but Cat Grant can be… persuasive,” Sarah grumbled. She glanced around the apartment quickly, checking for anything out of the ordinary. There was something about the place, how warm and friendly the open space with its eclectic collection of furnishing was, the soft scents that lingered in the air instead of overwhelming her senses that made her want to just sit and rest.

To let it welcome her home.

“She is like that,” Kara smiled wryly. “Cat doesn’t usually give out employees addresses—”

“I didn’t hurt her!”

“I wasn’t going to say that you had,” Kara rushed to explain, “only that she must have trusted you to break a rule like that.” Tilting her head, she tried to catch Ghost’s eye but she seemed lost in thought, her gaze elsewhere.

Cautiously, Kara tried approaching the other woman, softening her stance to show she meant no harm. In a way, it reminded her of Streaky again. The cautious way she’d had to approach the spitting ball of black fur and learn to be soft so he could trust her and she could learn to trust herself.

“Do you want to sit down? I could get you a drink?”

“I should leave—” Even as she spoke the words, Sarah found her attention caught by an easel by the window, the canvas standing on it covered by a white cloth. “You paint?”

“When I get the time. The one by the fireplace is one of mine,” Kara offered, not wanting her pain to be revealed by the uncovering of the half-finished painting of Lena on the easel. Her strange guest moved across the room, silently floating just above the floor still but her knees alighted on the varnished floorboards as she knelt to study her painting.

Like many that Kara did, it was what most people thought was just an abstract piece when in reality, it was stars she had seen from her pod when she had been cast away from Krypton. The one that Ghost was looking at was of a constellation of stars well known to the people of her planet and Rao itself burning red in the distance.

She bit her lip, hoping for some sign of recognition.

“It’s beautiful. You are very good.” Sarah reached out, her fingers hovering just above the surface of the paint. The constellation was not one she knew but there was a love and pain trapped within every brushstroke that left deep furrows in the paint that made it feel important to the reporter.

“What is it you wanted to see me for?”

“This,” reaching into her pocket, Sarah held out the memory stick. “All that I’ve found out about Edge’s business so far. It’s not complete but I’m hoping it will be enough.”

“Why give it to me?”

“You have got a voice that people trust, Ms Danvers. I’m a Ghost that almost killed one of Earths protectors. You, they will listen to. Me, not so much. Especially not after what happened at the docks.”

“You saved me.”

“Ahh, you haven’t heard.”

“Heard what?”

“The two guards. I got them out before the fire got too bad.”

“I heard.” Boy had she heard all about them… mostly because Alex had bemoaned the fact that with the DEO no more, she wasn’t allowed to interrogate them.

“They were found dead a couple of hours ago in a locked cell and the police are blaming me for it. I found out about it before I came here. I know you have no reason to trust me, Ms Danvers but the video they say they have of me is fake. Right now though, the only way the police want to see me know is dead, in handcuffs or both.”

“I believe you.”

“You do?”

“Erm, yeah?” Kara stuttered nervously as Ghost glanced her way cautiously. She couldn’t exactly reveal that she had been listening to her heart when she had been talking, listening to the slow, almost familiar cadence and committing it to memory and knew she wasn’t lying because her heart had remained steady.

That wasn’t a very perfectly normal, human thing for Kara Danvers to be able to do.

“You saved my life… William’s too,” she remembered to add on almost belatedly, And she could have sworn that made Ghost giggle just a little. “And you got those two men out when you could have killed them during the fight if you had wanted to. There was no reason to wait and then kill them.”

“Maybe I needed information from them.”

“Are you trying to make me suspect you?”

“Just thought I should point it out because maybe I can’t quite work you out, Ms Danvers.”

“Kara.” Kara held out her hand, hoping to hear a name given back in return.

Sarah shook her head, almost laughing out loud at Ms Danvers… Kara’s attempt to get her name. “Nice try—” her words dried up as she stood up and found herself face to face with a photograph on the mantle.

She picked it up.

Given pride of place, it was a simple photograph of a couple cuddled in close to each other. The golden blonde hair, tanned face and blue eyes crinkled by a wide smile were obviously Kara Danvers. The look was as familiar to Sarah as the warm weight of her arm around her waist even though it was out of sight in the photo…

She winced against the pain lancing behind her eyes and looked blankly at the other woman in the photo.

“Are you okay?”

“Hmm? Yes,” Sarah put the framed photograph back in its place and turned away. “Sorry, I should have asked before just picking that up. I need to go now. I hope you can find something of use on the stick.”

“Wait,” Kara snagged her hand. “What if I need to contact you again to follow up on anything or maybe an interview?”

“Then you would have to shout really loudly because I’m leaving in a day or two. You have Supergirl to help out with anything else, I hear she’s close to Cat Grant.”

“Cat?” Kara blinked in confusion at what almost sounded like jealousy in the electronically altered voice.

“National City, nowhere really, is a good place for me to be.”

“Where do you call home then? Where does Ghost go when you’re not saving people?”

“The story you need to investigate is on that memory stick, Ms Danvers. Not here. Not me. I’m not the villain I seemed at first but I’m not a hero either. And, believe me, you don’t want to know what lies beneath this,” gesturing to her hoodie, Sarah carefully extracted her hand from the determined reporters grasp and stepped out of the window.

“Goodbye, Ms Danvers.”

The words were like a punch to Kara’s gut, holding her locked in place long in the middle of her living room long after it was possible for her to change and hope to catch up to her as Supergirl.

Belatedly moving to the window, she looked out into the night, studying Ghost had left in the trails in the moonlit clouds. She went over every word, every look and interaction for clues.

Kara’s hand tightened around the memory stick Ghost had handed to her, reminding her of its presence. Lifting it up to the light, she studied the small device as though she could see the code contained in it through the casing.

A smile of anticipation slowly spreading across her lips. It had been so long since she had felt the thrill of the hunt that came with a story pumping through her veins that she hadn’t realised she’d even been missing it until that moment.

Whether the story that excited her was the mystery of what Lord and Edge were up to or Ghost, that remained to be seen. However, it was Ghost that had her attention.

Twice she had tried to offer up reasons as to why she should stay away from her and the danger but her actions just made Kara more determined.

“Nice try.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Feeling the need to be busy, Kara paced back and forth across the floor of the Tower they had made their main control room.

Alex and Kelly were working their normal day jobs and Nia was out of the Tower finishing up a patrol and hopefully collecting lunch for them, which left Kara alone with M’gann and Brainy.

Unable to help herself, she glanced over to where Brainy was busy working, his fingers racing and tapping with precise strokes over two keyboards at the same time. Before him, multiple screens were lit and flashing through banks of information as he analysed the security footage from the police station and kept an eye on live CCTV footage from around National City at the same time.

The memory stick, Kara had left at her apartment and was still keeping to herself for the moment burnt a hole in her conscience but, not enough that she was willing to share. Not yet.

“You seem troubled.”

“What? Me?” Kara stopped pacing at M’gann’s open, friendly gaze. She forgot sometimes how perceptive the white martian could be. Whether that was a product of her years spent tending bar and dealing with aliens from a multitude of different planets or just who she was, Kara wasn’t sure but there was always a calmness too her even when she was teasing. “I’m just feeling restless.”

“You are healed then?”

“Yep, back up to full strength at last,” Kara beamed, floating off the floor in happiness.

“So I see,” M’gann smiled. “And as there been any more sightings of your Ghost?” She quirked an eyebrow as Kara suddenly seemed to forget how to fly, breath and regulate her temperature if the colour rushing into her face was any indication.

“ _My—_ What? She’s not my anything—” Kara spluttered.

“Oh, I thought that as she is of your species and as you have Brainy looking for evidence of her innocence.”

“That’s not how that works. It doesn’t make her _mine_ , M’gann,” Kara stuttered out, blinking at M’gann as she tried to work out if she was being teased or not while trying to dampen down the strange feeling that had shot through her at Ghost been hers. Simply put, Ghost belonged to no one but herself but, there was still that feeling. That same possessiveness that was making her keep information from her friends.

No, that was just a precaution!

Kara moved across the room to stand behind Brainy. She had already been admonished several times for backseat computering so she stayed quiet and let him work.

For a couple of seconds.

“Anything yet?”

Tempering his sigh at the interruption, Brainy sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers together.

“I know, I know,” Kara huffed, “don’t hover!”

“I would have worded it differently but you are ninety-three per cent correct. Also, I was going to add that although I haven’t got definitive proof yet, there is evidence that the footage acquired from the police station shows signs of tampering. I have yet to determine what kind but I am fairly certain that once I do it will show that Ghost had nothing to do with their deaths.”

“I knew it!”

“Hmm, you did,” he agreed. “But, how did you know?”

“It just wasn’t her style?”

“Are you asking me?”

“Anything on the CCTV yet?” Kara asked, hoping to distract him with another question.

“That remains as frustrating as always. As her powers are on a similar level to your own she is as difficult to detect as Supergirl due to speed and ability to fly. However, when you are walking around as yourself, sans cape, I could use the system and facial recognition software to follow you around the city. There is, however, no one within range of any cameras that look like Ghost.”

“Maybe they have a secret lair or they hide out in a cave as Batwoman does?” M’gann offered unhelpfully.

Or, Kara thought, maybe the person they were looking for looked nothing like Ghost had any more.

She looked at the screens filled with tiny boxed of camera footage. If she was even there, any one of the people walking around the streets of National City enjoying the break in the weather could be Ghost. Anyone from the woman with short blonde hair recklessly dodging traffic to catch a cab, to the dark-haired woman pinching off bits of doughnuts to eat one tiny bite at a time, even the woman with a rainbow coloured bob feeding ducks in the park could—

“Doughnuts!?” Kara jerked upright, almost crushing the desk she had been leaning against in shock.

“Nia is picking lunch up for us,” Brainy mumbled distractedly. “I am sure she will think to bring doughnuts back along with everything else.”

Kara ignored him even as her stomach gave a hopeful grumble, her eyes raced over the screens, trying to find the woman with the dark hair again but by the time she found a feed that might have been the same location, all she saw was a completely different woman with platinum-blonde hair putting an empty bag in the trash as she walked away.

~~~~~~~~~~

Before the well-maintained path through the park merged with the one that stretched along the waterfront, Sarah cut through the trees, leaving the couples out for a stroll and the office workers hastily wolfing down their food and tapping away on their phones.

She had done everything she could there in National City.

She had found everything she could.

It was time for her to head home and yet… There was something about that city that felt familiar…

The scent of it.

The pulse and beat of it, and the people that lived there.

Lifting her head to the sun, she licked her lips, tasting the salt blowing in from the ocean mingling with the sugary sweetness of the doughnut that lingered on her lips.

_Blue eyes smiled at her warmly as they walked beside the water, their shoulders and fingers brushing._

_Blue turning shy and darkening behind nervously adjusted frames as she brushed a grain of sugar from the corner of generously plump lips with the pad of her thumb._

_The moment lost to…_

A distant cry for help caught Sarah’s attention, shaking her out of thoughts. Looking up, her hands raised in indecision, hovering at the edge of her hoodie, Sarah watched the blonde figure clad in blue and red streaking across the city skyline as Supergirl flew to help out the people under her protection.

Pulling her hood up, activating her image inducer with a practised move, she took to the sky. Hovering above the trees, she looked in the direction Supergirl had flown before setting her sight on the way home.

“Goodbye, Supergirl.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN - that chapter was stubborn! All my fault though as I was trying to fit in a scene that, when it came down to it, just didn't want to fit in.


	11. Chapter 11

“I can’t believe that Cat is letting us go on a road trip,” Nia crowed in delight as she hopped and bounced her way down the steps from her apartment to the sidewalk where the spaceship J’onn had disguised as a pale blue, 1952 Chevrolet Deluxe convertible when he had arrived on Earth was waiting.

“It’s not a road trip,” Kara admonished, pushing herself upright from her position leaning against the side of the vehicle.

“Oh please! You are tots wearing your road trip outfit. I’ve seen the pictures,” Nia snorted, giving Kara a pointed look up and down.

Nia had seen Kara in casual clothing many times but, while casual, this was different, almost a uniform in itself. Her jeans were faded to a soft blue that screamed comfort even though they were skin-tight, while her black and white checked shirt hung highlighted the breadth of her shoulders while the sleeves rolled up to her elbows expose her forearms that were still eminently feminine even as they bristled with muscles.

Topped off with an olive green bandana tied jauntily around her neck and her hair loose around her shoulders, the golden, beachy curls pushed back by the sunglasses perched on her head, it was a look that, well, if Nia wasn’t straight and in a relationship, she would have joined her neighbour who almost walked into a streetlamp and swooned trying to ogle Kara.

“The only time I’ve seen you wear that it’s been in photos from when you and Alex have gone to visit Eliza. I have to say, the camera doesn’t do it justice,” she gave a little growl of appreciation and winked at her flustered neighbour.

“We’re going on a highly professional business trip to do some investigative journalism. Not a road trip.”

“Why do you sound like you expect Cat to pop out from behind a tree to chew you out?”

“You don’t?” Kara quirked a brow at her friend who went several shades paler at the thought and looked around nervously.

“Point taken,” Nia swallowed nervously. Even world-saving heroes were allowed to be nervous at the threat of Cat Grant. Especially when the sting of being summoned to Cat’s office and been told they needed to ‘do more, do better’ and ‘take Ms Nal with you and put a human face to this mess, Kara’ still rang in their ears.

“For what it’s worth, I thought your story was good.”

“Good doesn’t cut it with Cat back in charge,” Kara shrugged. “Anyway, she was right. It was damning but not enough. People are losing their homes and livelihoods but it was all being done within the law and there was nothing to tie Lord or Edge into the things that weren’t. We need the stories of the people affected.”

“And maybe to fill in some blanks.”

Kara looked up from studying the toe of her blue vans. She knew by the tone of Nia’s voice that her friend was thinking of more than just Cat’s orders. “Have you had a dream about it?”

“Nothing clear yet beyond this being important. Either that or I just really want to do a jigsaw puzzle,” Nia pursed her lips, unwilling to comment further until she’d had a chance to think about her vision further and work out what questions she wanted the answer to for when the next one came along.

“Well, put your stuff in the trunk and let's see if we can get some of those blanks filled in before Cat fires us.”

Nia was never more glad that Brainy had made it so that her uniform materialised from a ring than she was right then as she looked back and forth from her two small bags and the decided lack of room for them in the truck thanks to the back of chips, cookies and candy that were threatening to spill out onto the road.

“Erm, Kara?”

“What’s taking so long?”

“You do realise that snacks and actual food _can_ be brought on the road, right? They’re not just limited to National City.”

“Yeah,” Kara snorted, “that’s just for today. Come on, hurry up or we’ll have to stop for a second breakfast before we leave the city.”

“Like you didn’t already plan on doing that,” Nia grumbled fondly as she moved snacks from the trunk into the back seat so they were in reach and crammed her bags in among the rest. Slamming the trunk, she hopped over the passenger door and put on her sunglasses as she settled into the seat with a grin and an appreciative sigh as the sinfully plush leather seat cradled her.

“I feel like I should have picked something fancier to wear to ride in this. Can’t believe J’onn left this baby behind for you.”

“Technically he left it in Alex’s care,” Kara muttered. “Don’t worry, I left Alex a note. Not that she’ll notice, she never even uses it. She swears the only time she thought of it, J’onn called her seconds later. Just… don’t say anything to anyone.” Grinning at her friend, Kara flicked her shades down and pressed play on her ‘totally not a road trip’ playlist and bunny hopped them out into the flow of traffic.

Flying would have been quicker but, using more traditional, human planes would have raised the ire of the CatCo accounting department whereas flying in as Supergirl would have been too quick, even with allowing for Nia’s vulnerability at the kind of speeds that were normal for her, would have raised different kinds of questions that were even more unwelcome.

When it came down to it, Kara just felt like she needed to take the time and connect with the people.

She had their route all planned out ready to take them across the country to the towns under threat. The weather was good. She had a friend at her side and snacks to last a couple of hours.

And there was time for that second breakfast as well as a stop-off to collect an order or two of potstickers for lunch before they left National City.

~~~~~~~~~~

Carefully balancing the full tray she was carrying, Sarah made her way from the kitchen to the porch. Amy murmured softly in appreciation and marked her place in her book with a piece of wool, tucking the worn paperback beneath her thigh as Sarah placed the tray on the table between the chairs they were using.

Knowing her friend wouldn’t have it any other way, sat down in the seat the other side of the table while Amy ‘played mom’ and poured their drinks; coffee for herself and tea freshly brewed in a china teapot Sarah had found hidden in a cupboard for her.

There was a mug ready for Justin but he looked to be having too much fun playing fetch with Todd and Copper who were bounding around him like pups in the cooling evening air, their eyes bright and eager, their ears flapping around their heads as they whipped around trying to track the ball still lodged within the maw of Justin’s big hand.

Amy smiled into the steam rising from her mug at his antics and the smile it brought to Sarah’s face.

Two weeks had passed since Sarah had returned to the farm, home as Sarah called it willingly and every day, Amy couldn’t help but think how good it was to have her there. It was a bittersweet feeling though as they had both been certain that National City was jogging her memory with how long Sarah was there. When they had asked though, she had gone blank for the longest time. So long that Amy was sure that something was wrong.

She had been all set to go to her but Justin had restrained her, nodding to point out the drop of blood coming from Sarah’s nose. Like a switch being thrown, Sarah had wiped away the blood without even seeming to realise what she was doing and came back to herself.

Whatever had happened to the woman she had been for her body to bear the scars she was only just becoming comfortable to show around them and leave her mind in tatters, she was safe there with them and they vowed not to try and push her again.

“I think the boys have got Justin beat today,” Sarah laughed as his throw sent the dogs ball half its usual distance across the yard. The dogs looked at him and back at Justin with a clear look of disappointment before bounding off after it with baying woofs.

“Maybe they need a superpowered play partner,” Amy grinned.

“You do remember what happened the last time, right?” Sarah laughed, remembering her wayward throw that had sent a stick flying off like a rocket god knows where. The dogs had been undeterred and determined and had shot off just as fast as the soaring stick to hunt it down. They had been gone for over thirty minutes, Sarah keeping an ear on them for every second, before they had returned dragging the good part of a tree between them.

Justin had taken one look at the huge hunk of wood they had tried to drag into the kitchen, their efforts thwarted by the length of it, and handed her a quarter saying he wanted to see what the inflation would be like on it if she threw it for them.

“Whew!” Huffing his way towards the porch, Justin threw his arms over the rail and tried to reach his mug from where he was standing.

“Will you just haul your ass up here and sit down properly you old fool!”

Winking at Sarah, he did as ordered, stomping his way onto the porch and pulled up a chair next to the two women, barely managing to claim a spot before the dogs took up all the room. He murmured his thanks as Sarah handed him his coffee, pausing long enough to bring it back to the temperature he preferred with a careful blast of her heat vision.

“How are the crops doing?” Amy asked once her husband had taken his first sip and settled back. It was a question that had only recently started to bring good replies instead of moans and sighs as had become the norm.

“Top field should be ready for harvesting by the weekend if…” he glanced at Sarah expectantly.

“Don’t worry, that old beast will still be purring away. And if it fails I’ll do the harvest by hand,” she glared into the distance where she knew the troublesome machine was parked.

“How about the bottom fields?”

“Bit sparse at the moment. We need a break in this weather so some water can get to them.”

“I might have an idea about that,” Sarah murmured around the lip of her mug. “I was hoping that reporter would have done a story that would have pulled Edge back by now though.”

“What are you thinking, Sarah? You need to be careful—”

“I will be,” she assured them. “Some things are worth the risk though. This town. You. You’re worth the risk that someone might see me but I swear, I will be careful. And once it’s done, everyone will have all the water that was theirs by rights.”

“Is there anything we can do to make that risk, less risky?”

“No! I’m not even going to tell you what I’m thinking of doing so you’ve got plausible deniability!”

Amy tapped at her chin in thought. Leaning forward in her chair, she put her mug down, drawing their attention to her as she turned to face them both. “You’re doing whatever this is for all the farmers?”

“Yes.”

“Then it’s not just us that will need the plausible deniability. Justin.”

“Yes, dear,” knowing the twinkle in her eyes from their slightly misspent youth when she had managed to sneak them out of more situations than was probably good for them, he leaned forward eagerly.

“I think it’s time this town had a night of fun like it used to. Some food and music, maybe some fireworks to end the night? It would help to keep up the spirits of the poor farmers?”

“Hmm, I hear the town square is good for things like that. Easy to lose someone in the crowd too,” Justin winked at them both, plans already forming in his mind.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Are we there yet?” Nia smirked at the way Kara’s fingers drummed against the top of the steering wheel before she picked a direction and turned the wheel to take them to the right at the unsignposted junction.

According to the satnav, which kept losing connection, their journey should have been a straight run through from the town they had left to their next destination. In reality, the straight road had suddenly vanished into a series of new, unmarked ones in such poor condition the bottom of the car had clanged horribly against a boulder sticking up out of the uneven surface. Every one of the roads all seemed to lead to a massive factory. From what Kara had been able to make out, as well as not been on the supposedly up to date map of the satnav, it was unmanned.

“You could just fly up a little and see where we need to go or put this baby into flight mode?” she supplied as the satnav told them to take a left turn that would have put them in the middle of what might have been a pond of a set piece for the bog of eternal stench from Labyrinth.

“Or, you could dream the right road up for us,” Kara shot back. She was starting to feel like she was getting some understanding of how Alex felt on their road trips together. “This has to be the right road,” she grumbled. “Right?”

“I hope so. We ran out of snacks hours ago and I fear for my life every time your stomach grumbles.”

“We should have got some more burgers at that last place, they were good.”

“They were terrible,” Nia amended, shuddering at the memory of all the grease that had flowed out of her burger just from a hard stare. “Hey,” leaning closer, she gave Kara’s tense shoulder a squeeze and offered up a smile. “We’ll find the place soon.”

Hopefully, that would be sooner rather than later because, even before they had left their motel that morning, Nia had been able to feel the anticipation coming off Kara in waves.

“Kara, we’ve been to a couple of towns messed up by Edge and Lord, why has this one got you so antsy?”

“It hasn’t!”

“Kara.”

“Okay. Fine.” Pulling the car over to the side of the road, Kara cut the engine. “Most of the information on the story I was writing… Ghost gave it to me,” she rushed out, breathing out a huffed sigh of relief that the secret was out.

“What?!” Nia felt her jaw almost unhinge in shock.

“Yeah, she slipped a note into my pocket at the warehouse and then turned up at my place and gave me a copy of everything she’d got.”

“She- she was at your apartment? How did she know where you lived?”

“Cat told her.”

Just when Nia thought she’d got her jaw in check, it flopped open again. The Cat Grant she knew was a stickler about giving out personal information and yet she had handed over Kara’s address to the woman that had beaten up Superman. Granted, Cat knew who Kara was but even so, GHOST HAD BEATEN SUPERMAN!

“So, all these places we’ve been too—”

“They’re on Ghost’s list. A lot of them we’d already found out but we didn’t know the details that matched up in all of them.”

“And this one we’re heading to you think is—”

“That this is where it all started for Ghost.” Kara looked at her friend, waiting for her to call her an idiot or insist that they call for backup but she found her watching her, maybe with a hint of incredulity but mostly it was with calmness.

“You trust her, don’t you? Even after what happened to Superman?”

“Forget about that one moment, Nia. She’s more than just that. Look at everything she’s done since. Please.”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“I trust your judgement, Kara. I trust you. And, you’re right, Ghost has been doing good… apart from that whole beating the tar out of Superman thing. But, she did stop instead of killing him and Lois too.”

“I can’t tell if you’re working back to accusing Ghost of something or not right now,” Kara frowned in confusion as she started the car back up again.

“No,” Nia laughed. “I trust your judgement and I’ll give Ghost every chance to prove you right.”

“Thanks,” Kara beamed happily, a lightness seeping back into her that the confusion with the road that had stopped them reaching their goal eased despite the thought that echoed dimly in her mind, struggling to take route and spread poison within the moment with the wish that it could have been so easy many times before…

With Lena.

Always with Lena.

“Oh, looks like we’re on the right path!” Nia crowed as the car reached the brow of a hill to reveal a landscape filled with small farms that were obviously struggling due to a drought that was turning the land patchy and brown. In the distance, bathed in rays of golden sunlight, she could see a small cluster of low buildings and a white church that made up the town they were looking for.

“You really think that Ghost is down there somewhere?”

“Its as likely as Superman been brought up on a farm, Supergirl coming from Midvale or Dreamer growing up the community of Parthas,” Kara reminded her.

“Point taken,” Nia chuckled. “Well, come on, let’s see if we can’t find a Ghost.”

With their goal in sight, the road ahead felt more welcoming again, the scenery passing by in fields of crops waving in the breeze and grazing cattle that lifted their heads in interest at the vehicle passing by blasting out NSYNC.

With the sun beating down on their heads, it was easy to ignore for the moment the state of the land and the plight of the farmers but it was there, lurking on the edge of their vision in the state of the fields and the farmhouses that had been fenced off and pulled down already.

It was not eerily similar but exactly the same as the other towns they had visited already in other states where Edge had suddenly appeared and shown an interest in failing land.

Despite its size, the small town was bustling as they entered it, an air of excitement bubbling up that matched the brightly coloured bunting and the flyers posted on posts, walls and shop windows and waiting for them on the front desk of the motel they were booked into.

“Music… All you can eat barbeque… Fireworks? Sounds like the locals are planning a good time tonight,” Nia mused as she studied the flyer.

“Not just the locals. Y’all are more than welcome to pop along and join in. It’s free, all you need to bring is your appetite.”

Nia rolled her eyes as Kara’s stomach latched on to the word and growled a happy refrain.

“Come on, let's get settled and then we’ll see about pregaming some food at that café we saw on the way in so you don’t eat the town out of food later.”

~~~~~~~~~~

Murmuring in pleasure, Kara licked the stick pink remnants of cotton candy off her fingers, her eager eyes already raking across the stalls set up around the town square with a bone dry fountain in the middle, and stretching up along either side of the main street for her next culinary victim.

The whole town and every farmer for miles around seemed to be out on the street, their excited chatter filling the air as they milled around, greeting old friends as though they hadn’t seen each other for years and holding out hands and a friendly greeting to herself and Nia.

There were people there not so welcome though, Kara saw them, figures acting apart from everyone, watching the proceedings with a cold, professional gaze that reminded Kara of how the agents at the DEO could be when they were on a mission. A quick glance with her x-ray vision revealed some of them to be carrying weapons. The locals seemed to know it too as only people used to carrying weapons to protect their crops and livestock from all manner of pests could.

An excited, baying woof had Kara’s ears perking up, her eyes raking across the milling crowds until she spotted the two beautiful, sleek coated hounds bounding around the legs of a couple without leashes to restrain them.

“Todd! Copper! You two settle down!”

The hounds came to heel, tongues lolling comically as they looked up at their owners for praise. And then they were off again, their heads tilting, ears flapping as they darted in and out of people without care of a voice of admonishment from anyone until they reached a young woman.

Kara couldn’t see her face as her back was turned as she knelt down to pet the dogs but, there was something about her that made Kara just stand there and watch, her feet frozen to the ground as she watched loosely curling, dark hair tumbling in a silken wave, caressing the sharp line of her jaw before settling around slender shoulders.

Unsticking her feet, Kara took a half stumbled step forward, her heart leaping but, her view and way forward were suddenly blocked by the people passing between them and by the time Kara was able to see again, she was gone and the dogs were back walking calmly with their owners leaving Kara wondering…

“Is it possible for sugar to cause hallucinations?”

Nia paused behind Kara, her question about if the floral sundress she was wearing was okay, dying at the lost tone in her friend's voice.

“Not sure about that but as I would rather not have to carry you around if you fall into a diabetic coma or crash from the sugar rush, how about we get another food group in you to soak up some of that sugar?” Tucking her arm into the crook of Kara’s elbow, Nia tugged and pulled until she finally got Kara’s feet moving even if her attention was elsewhere.

Kara craned her head around, her eyes searching the crowds milling around all the stalls for a glimpse of what may or may not have been a hallucination but, even when she spotted the couple with the dogs again… who she was determined she was going to pet at some point just to see if their ears were as soft as they looked, they were surrounded by different people every time, locked in hushed conversations despite the noise and chatter around them surely meant the need for voices to be raised?

All her years as Supergirl screamed at her at their actions but mostly because the people she had seen with the guns earlier were watching the couple with narrowed eyes too.

Something was going on!

“Hey, Kara, looks like the music is about to start,” Nia gestured to where a band was gathering on a small stage set up next to a grassy area. “Do you want to be closer or further away from it?”

Kara looked around, getting a lay of the land while trying to see where the couple might be heading.

“Food first,” Kara decided, “I saw someone with some steak, creamed potatoes and gravy earlier that looked and smelled like heaven. Then maybe we can listen from somewhere on the edges.”

Where they could watch and slip away unseen if needed. Nia nodded in understanding, her fingers running unconsciously over her ring in readiness as Kara touched her glasses.

~~~~~~~~~~

With half an ear trained on what was happening in the town square, Sarah skirted around the edges of the town. She had made sure to be seen by the thugs working for Edge several times during the day until they were made complacent by the sheer amount of people they were supposed to watch, the drinks they had consumed to fit in as well as the light falling as the sun had set on a hot day, bringing with it a balmy peace.

Checking her surroundings, Sarah flicked her hood up and shot into the sky faster than the human eye could see. As she passed silently over the crowd gathered to listen to the music, she thought she saw a familiar head of golden blonde curls on the outskirts and saw them look up, blue eyes seeming to pierce the night to find her.

She shook off the feeling and flew faster, dipping down until she could have touched the ground with the tips of her fingers if she reached for it.

The cheers from the town reached her ears as she neared factory and slowed and pierced the thick walls and floor with her x-ray vision and listened for signs of life.

Deep within the building, she could hear the thrum of generators and the sound of water that should have been nourishing the land coursing through massive pipes. According to the plans for the building, the water was supposed to be for cooling the machines above but she could tell that they weren’t connected to any machines and that the amount of water being diverted went far beyond what their operations said they were using.

It was tempting to forgo her usual stealthy approach and destroy the door that stood in her path after having the last place burn around her but, showing more restraint that she was feeling, she carefully picked the lock, beating her personal best for good measure.

Once inside, she went down, deeper and deeper, until she reached the pipes that lay below the ones any inspectors would ever see. The inspection friendly pipes were running quietly, the computers monitoring them programmed to show only what they were told to. The ones beneath them, locked beneath several layers of biometric locks were twice as tall as she was and rattled and hummed with the strength of the water been pulled and cycled through them.

With a hand pressed against the cold pipe, Sarah followed it, her mind racing over the puzzle of what it could possibly be for and looking for the best way to sabotage it.

The roar of water grew louder with every step the deeper she went until she came to the end of it and stepped out onto a metal platform. The pipe jutted out further, spilling out its contents into a pit so deep and wide she struggled to see the bottom or sides through the mist created by the torrent of falling water.

“You worry too much, Max everything is fine here!”

Acting instinctively, Sarah flew over to the other side of the pipe, her ears training in on the voice coming from where she had come from.

“Yes, I’m sure. Though, it would go much easier if you would tell me the names the Kryptonians hide behind too.”

Her lip twisting at the slime she could hear dripping from the man’s voice, Sarah honed her ears in on the other side of the call.

“No. You already proved you’re too impulsive with what happened in National City.”

“We were just supposed to ignore what Ghost was doing?”

“Every time we have to clean up a mess, we run the risk of exposure!”

“Exposure is what the Supers deserve!”

“And then what? They go into hiding and we run the risk of losing the chance to use them as well as the other aliens to gain control over everything.”

_Use them?_

_“Humanity can't be fixed. They need to be controlled.”_

“Just keep a cool head and follow through with the plan. It took a lot of time to unravel what Lex Luthor left behind so we could have this chance. Every single last alien will be under our control, working for us and people will hail us as saviours of the human race. Just be patient. Soon it will be too late for anyone to stop us.”

_“Think of all that we could accomplish together if we just take our rightful place as humanity's saviours.”_

_“You're a monster.”_

Breathing hard, Sarah clenched her fists and screwed her eyes shut, reining in on a cold fury that had her breath freezing the side of the pipe and droplets of falling water even as it threatened to explode out of her eyes and burn Edge to ash as he walked away, humming a happy tune beneath his breath.

What they were planning was still hidden from her but it obviously went far beyond anything she had been able to find out and threatened the whole world.

They were monsters.

“But that doesn't mean I have to be one, too.”

Plummeting down, following the falling water, Sarah plunged into the icy depths below. Eyes flashing in the darkness, she burned her way through the bedrock of the manmade reservoir and burrowed through the ground using her x-ray vision as a guide as she forged paths to release the water back where it belonged.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Water!”

Kara jumped, her body feeling like it was being shocked as Nia suddenly sat bolt upright from where she had fallen asleep at her side on the blanket they had been handed while listening to the music.

Giggling at the glances they were getting, Kara pushed a bottle of water into Nia’s hand to give her friend a moment to work through the dream vision she’d obviously just had.

“Okay! Is this thing on? Listen up, everyone! Our mayor is giving us dirty looks!”

A round of good-natured boos and jeering rang out across the crowd.

“I know! I know! How about we close this shindig down with a bang and set some of these here fireworks off?”

“Yeah, baby! Light them suckers!”

“No more hooch for you, Mary!”

“Bite me!”

“Okay! Ten… Nine… Eight…”

“What did you see?” Kara asked, leaning forward eager for information.

“Seven… Six…”

“The feeling we should move.”

“Five… Four…”

“What is that?” Kara pressed her hand to the ground, a frown creasing her brow as she felt a vibration building steadily beneath her palm and butt. “Nia?” Her frown deepened as instead of looking concerned, Nia actually smiled, spread out her arms and tilted back her head as the crowd’s countdown reached zero and fireworks soared into the sky and exploded…

Along with a jet of water from the fountain as it roared to life and rained down on the crowd who cheered in delight and rejoiced at its cooling spray.

“Looks like this towns drought is over,” Nia chuckled, throwing an arm over Kara’s shoulder.

Kara looked up, staring through the drops of water gathering on her glasses to the figure hovering high above, her dark clothed body highlighted by the rainbow bursts of colour from the fireworks for a moment before they streaked away.

**Author's Note:**

> AN - I will not be changing the archive warnings when it comes to MCD so, please, don't ask.
> 
> Title and song lyrics are from Ghost by Adaline. Which, if you don't know it by now, find Wynonna Earp, season 4, episode 2 and have your mind blown.


End file.
